Rookie Patrick Baldwin Jr. details whirlwind Wednesday trip to Santa Cruz before helping Warriors win
Patrick Baldwin Jr. went through a full G League practice Wednesday before rejoining the big league club for their game against the Jazz.
SAN FRANCISCO — Patrick Baldwin Jr. doesn’t always know how long he’ll be with the Sea Dubs when he’s assigned to the Warriors’ G League affiliate. It could be days or weeks.
This week’s stint, though, was just mere hours.
Baldwin made the drive Wednesday morning to Santa Cruz, where he joined the G League team for practice. With the Santa Cruz Warriors playing in back-to-back games Thursday and Friday, Baldwin planned to stay there for a bit.
But with Draymond Green and Donte DiVincenzo listed as questionable on the NBA team’s injury report ahead of Wednesday’s game against the Utah Jazz, Baldwin and Ryan Rollins were still sweating from their workouts when they received texts about needing to be back in San Francisco for added depth.
The next thing they knew, the two rookies were back in a car on their way to Chase Center. They arrived around 6 p.m. for a 7 p.m. tip.
Exhausted? Of course. But Baldwin was revitalized on the ride back to San Francisco by two peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwiches — a combination he surprisingly had just recently discovered. Once he arrived, adrenaline kicked in and helped push him to the finish line.
“I felt good in warmups,” Baldwin said. “When you check in the game and Draymond [Green] tells you to let it fly, you let it fly. It gives you great confidence, and you just have to stay ready.”
Baldwin might have been running on fumes after his short-notice call-up. But he stood out as a key contributor off the bench after Jonathan Kuminga got into foul trouble in the Warriors’ 112-107 comeback win over the Utah Jazz.
Kuminga picked up his third foul with 6:58 left in the second quarter, paving the way for Baldwin to get an extended run for the second time in a week. And the 20-year-old once again dazzled with the opportunity.
Baldwin drilled a pair of 3s during a 10-0 Golden State run in the second that helped them tie the game. The Warriors went with Baldwin at the start of the fourth and he didn’t disappoint. He hit another shot from deep 26 seconds into the final frame to pull Golden State within three.
After the game, coach Steve Kerr said that basket felt like a “game changer.”
“Patrick changed the game when he stepped up out there and knocked down those 3s, especially the one he hit… early fourth — just kind of popped out, pick-and-pop jumper,” Kerr said.
Baldwin ended the night with 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting. He also grabbed three defensive boards and finished a team-best plus-13 in 13 minutes — not bad for a guy who showed up to Chase Center about an hour before tip-off.
“It’s been a crazy last four hours,” Baldwin said after the win.
Baldwin has been praised by his coaches and teammates for his mature demeanor, despite being so young and new to the league. A star out of high school, he was limited to only 11 games at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee due to a pesky ankle injury that hasn’t bothered him since the Warriors took him No. 28 overall in the June draft.
He’s spent a large chunk of this season so far in the G League to garner more experience, but has taken advantage of his opportunities with the NBA club. Wednesday’s game was the second time in the last week Baldwin reached double figures in scoring. He dropped a career-high 17 points in Golden State’s loss to the Brooklyn Nets on Dec. 21.
Kerr commended Baldwin for the way he’s handled sporadically jumping between the G League and NBA.
“It’s pretty impressive for them to keep going back and forth and then for Patrick to come in and play the way he did, it’s exciting,” Kerr said. “He’s got a lot of skill and he’s not afraid.”