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Fast Warriors start, ‘awesome' Malevy Leons put team back on track vs. Grizzlies
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- Fast Warriors start, ‘awesome' Malevy Leons put team back on track vs. Grizzlies
Fast Warriors start, 'awesome' Malevy Leons put team back on track vs. Grizzlies originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
The one and only Warriors player who didn't score in double figures was as impressive as anybody else in Golden State's dominant 133-112 win against the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday night at FedExForum.
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Malevy Leons finished one point shy of being the Warriors' ninth player to score at least 10 points. Leons, who is on a two-way contract , had played 21 NBA minutes all season. He played 18 productive minutes in Memphis and made his fellow Dutchman proud.
"It's really cool for Dutch basketball history for us to be on the court together," Warriors center Quinten Post said to Bob Fitzgerald and Kelenna Azubuike at halftime. "I've known Mal since I was 13, something like that. We played together in Amsterdam, so really cool to share the court here with him."
There are two current Dutch players in the NBA, and they both play for the Warriors. Leons and Post both were born in the Netherlands and take pride in representing their home country worldwide.
"It's funny to see a familiar face in the states like this. I don't think it happens often for Dutch guys to be on the same team," Leons said to Warriors Radio's Tim Roye after the win.
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Since the Warriors were so thin due to injuries, coach Steve Kerr used all nine of his healthy players in the first quarter. Leons was one of them, playing early minutes instead of the few garbage time minutes he has received in his five prior games this season. All nine Warriors scored in the first quarter, too.
That was the major difference Wednesday compared to the Warriors' bad loss the previous night to the New Orleans Pelicans . The Warriors rode a fast start to the finish line against the Grizzlies instead of never being able to climb out of a huge hole.
Like their upset win against the Denver Nuggets on Sunday, but unlike how they played in New Orleans , the ball was humming from the jump.
The Warriors scored 34 points in the first quarter. They made five 3-pointers and 10 of their 14 made shots were assisted. The ball movement continued in the second quarter where they outscored the Grizzlies 40-22. At halftime, the Warriors had a 21-point lead, 74-53, while shooting 55.3 percent from the field (26 of 47) and 48.1 percent from deep (13 of 27) with 20 assists and seven turnovers.
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Their final numbers included a 53.3 field-goal percentage and 41.3 3-point percentage in a win where they made 19 threes and 37 of their 49 made shots came from assists. Everybody was in on the action, too.
"We were able to move the ball really well, 37 assists, and just a really good night for everybody who stepped on the floor," Kerr said.
In the first quarter Sunday against the Nuggets, the Warriors scored 39 points, made nine threes and 13 of their 14 shots came from assists with just three turnovers. They scored a season-high 76 first-half points and had a nine-point lead on Denver with 15 threes and 25 assists on 27 made shots with six turnovers.
But against the 16-win Pelicans in an eventual four-point loss, the Warriors scored a lowly 19 points in the first quarter where they had twice as many turnovers (six) as assists (three). It was so bad that the Warriors in the first quarter scored 19 points but missed 17 shots. At halftime, they trailed by seven points with 12 turnovers, 10 assists, six made threes (23.1 percent) and were shooting 31.2 percent overall.
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There's a constant to the last three games for the Warriors. Veteran center Al Horford played in the two wins and was held out for injury management in the one loss. Horford, 39, totaled 32 points, eight rebounds, 10 assists, three steals and three blocked shots as a combined plus-26.
On the other side, Draymond Green didn't play in both wins and did play in the one loss. Before a strong second half in that game, Green was a minus-7 in the first half and the game didn't have the same flow. Horford, when consistently healthy, has been the better player this season as Green turns 36 in one week.
Leons on Wednesday received his first NBA minutes since playing the final three-plus minutes of a blowout loss to the Philadelphia 76ers three weeks ago. He brought the energy right away and came down with three rebounds – two on offense – in the first quarter. His first two points of the game came from reading Brandin Podziemski 's 3-point attempt was going to fall short. Leons put a swim move on Taylor Hendricks , caught the air ball and put it back up for two points.
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His hustle resulted in another three offensive rebounds in the second quarter. One turned into an assist where Leons found a cutting Will Richard , and another ended into him kicking it back out to Pat Spencer , who drained a three.
Leons in 18 minutes was a plus-3 with nine points on 3-of-5 shooting and made his one 3-pointer, tied for the team lead with eight rebounds and led the Warriors with five offensive rebounds, plus he also had two steals and a blocked shot.
"I thought Malevy was awesome," Kerr said. "Just the energy, defending without fouling, creating some problems for them at the defensive end of the floor and then making some nice plays on offense too. Was fun to watch him play."
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He's a 6-foot-9 forward who is 26 and played six games for the NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder last season. What his Warriors coaches asked him to do in Memphis was executed to perfection.
"Compete, defend, rebound," Leons said. "Just play as hard as possible and good things will happen."
The Warriors signed Leons to a two-way contract on Dec. 8, 2025. In 17 G League games with the Santa Cruz Warriors, he's averaging 13.8 points and 7.1 rebounds per game with 11 games of at least 15 points. He first started playing basketball at 8 years old, and the 2010 NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers is how he fell in love with the sport.
Nearly 16 years later, Leons helped kick start the Warriors in getting back to their identity for a needed win ahead of a prime-time matchup with Lakers at Chase Center on Saturday night.
