Andrew Wiggins is known for his silent-but-deadly demeanor on the basketball court, never one to show much fire on the floor.
His playmaking ability tends to speak for itself, and his two-way showing during the 2022 NBA Finals cemented his status as one of the Warriors’ key contributors without having to say much.
But there was one moment during Golden State’s championship run where Wiggins did use his voice, and the words he said let teammate Andre Iguodala know that the 27-year-old meant business when it came to their Finals matchup with the Boston Celtics.
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During the latest episode of Iguodala’s “Point Forward” podcast with his co-host Evan Turner and Wiggins as a guest, the Warriors veteran recalled a moment before the team’s championship-clinching Game 6 where a purposeful response from the small forward let him know they had it in the bag.
“Going into Game 6, this is what I wanted to ask you about,” Iguodala told Wiggins. “We’re in practice before Game 6, and I asked you -- because I’m taking the temperature. The reason why I talk so much and I’m so around in the locker room, I’m just trying to check temperatures, and it has to be organic and it has to be authentic. So I’ve got to really care about you to ask you a question, so I got to get to know my guys.
“But I asked you, I said, ‘Wiggs, I think we’ve got to win tomorrow.’ And the way you looked at me and you said, ‘We’ve got to win tomorrow,’ I just told Evan earlier, ‘Bro, when Wiggs said that, I’m like, we good.’”
Wiggins’ response was indicative of Golden State’s killer instinct heading into Game 6 up three games to two with a chance to close out the series and earn the team’s fourth championship in eight seasons.
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The team had fought back from an earlier two-games-to-one deficit in the best-of-seven series, and Wiggins explained their mentality -- and his -- to Iguodala on the podcast.
“It was just knowing that we’re one game away, you know. One game away,” Wiggins said. “If we can do this one more time, I can call myself a champion. I wasn’t going to let nothing get in the way of that.”
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As Dub Nation knows, Wiggins capped his All-Star regular season with a spectacular playoff run that would have seen him win Finals MVP, if it weren’t for a man named Steph Curry. He became a first-time NBA champion after helping lead the Warriors to their seventh title in team history.
And in the process, he proved that a little fire behind the scenes can show up in a big way on the court.