Is it a stretch to say that JaVale McGee won this game for the Warriors? It is, but it’s not the biggest stretch ever. He did a ton of damage in the first few minutes of the game, and the deleterious effects of such a marginal role-player playing that well on the Spurs’ players are probably severe. If I was, like, Kyle Anderson or something, and I saw that McGee was dominating my team, I’d want to give up and never play basketball again. Also I’d wonder why I wasn’t getting triple-doubles all the time like Internet commentator DownToBuck expected me to.
In the end, McGee ended up with the most points he’s scored this season, with 15. He almost certainly would’ve had more had the game been close, but it wasn’t, thanks to him. 15 seems really low for a season-high, since he can dunk it without really trying (and can also shoot jumpers now), but Steve Kerr has been marginalizing him the whole season. There are things I’m not seeing here, reasons why McGee is nigh-unplayable, either that or Kerr is a big ol’ dumbo.
I had something else to say about this performance, but I forgot it while writing that previous paragraph. Sorry! It probably wasn’t very insightful anyway.