Jordan Poole drops 43 points, setting a new career high in the Warriors’ 126-110 victory vs. the Toronto Raptors.
If you squint hard enough, you might not be able to tell that Steph Curry was missing from the Warriors' 126-110 win over the Toronto Raptors on Sunday night at Scotiabank Arena.
Fourth-year guard Jordan Poole, doing his best Curry impression, torched the Raptors for a career-high 43 points on 14-of-23 shooting from the field and 5-of-11 from 3-point range.
Poole's previous career-high was 38 points, which he accomplished twice before, along with two 36-point performances. In speaking to reporters after the game, Poole discussed what it meant to finally eclipse the elusive 40-point threshold.
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"It feels good," Poole said. "We were talking about that on the bench, a lot of the older guys had 39-(point) games with eight assists or seven assists, so it was cool to get over 40 and some of the older guys were giving me some crap about it, but more importantly, it was really good to get a road win."
In addition to the eye-popping numbers on offense, Poole's complimentary defense impressed coach Steve Kerr and his teammates.
"He's played a lot of great games for us," Kerr said of Poole's big game. "So if it's not the best, it's definitely one of the few best, because he was great at both ends. I thought his defense was excellent, he was patient offensively. He got us into our offense well, set the tone and just carried us."
"He was incredible on both sides of the ball," Draymond Green explained. "When you connect the game like that, things go your way. We all know what a special talent he is. He's been going through some growing pains and to see him come out tonight and have the game that he had, especially with Steph [Curry] being down and us needing to get a win, it was really huge. So it's great to see him play that way. I thought his effort on the defensive end carried over to the offensive end, which is great."
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Poole's dominance on both ends of the floor is what the Warriors expect from him, regardless of whether Curry is on the court or not. Warriors center Kevon Looney was happy to see the 23-year-old controlling the game from start to finish.
"He expects so much out of himself, and you can see when he's not playing really well he gets down on himself, so today, this is what he expects to do and go out there and get buckets and control the game," Looney said. "It's good to see him get it going and we expect, maybe not 40 (points) every game but we expect a lot from him and look forward to seeing what he does."
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With Curry reportedly sidelined for at least two weeks with a shoulder subluxation, Poole will look to fill as much of the void left by the two-time NBA MVP as he can.
If Sunday's win over the Raptors was a preview of what's to come, Poole should help the Warriors stay afloat in Curry's absence.