Warren's Scoring Outburst no Surprise to State Fans, Teammates
Nobody expected T.J. Warren to erupt for a career-high 53 points against the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday in the Indiana Pacers' first game inside the NBA's Orlando re-start "bubble."
But then, nobody who has ever seen the former NC State star at his best was surprised by his performance, either.
Warren is known as "Tony Buckets" for a reason, after all.
“T.J. Warren has been scoring his whole life, since his AAU days to NC State," Pacers teammate Victor Oladipo, who also contributed 15 points to Indiana's 127-123 victory , said in a postgame interview session. "I mean, he’s been a scorer since as long as I’ve known him and I’ve known him a long time or of him for a long time.
"He was born to get buckets, so it’s no surprise to any of us that he was able to do what he did tonight.”
Warren, the 2014 ACC Player of the Year, averaged 18.7 points per game through the first 61 games before the NBA season was halted by the coronavirus pandemic on March 12.
But he came into Saturday's game knowing that he might have to pick up even more of the scoring load with starters Malcolm Brogdon and Domantas Sabonis both out of the lineup because of non COVID-19-related health issues.
“I was very excited coming into the game,' Warren said. 'I knew it was time to get going. Everything will count now, so I just came in here with the same mentality as any other game and I was fortunate enough to make some shots and get the win.”
The 6-foot-8 forward got off to a strong start by scoring 19 points in the first quarter.
And that was only the beginning.
Warren went 20 of 29 from the floor with nine three-pointers while making all four of his free throw attempts to easily surpass his previous NBA best of 40 points, set while he was a member of the Phoenix Suns.
He also had four rebounds, three assists and two blocked shots.
'When a guy that hot, you try to get him the ball and all of our guys were trying to do that," Pacers coach Nate McMillan, who like Warren played for the Wolfpack. "T.J. was as hot as I’ve ever seen him and I thought our guys did a good job of sacrificing and screening and giving him the ball and giving him the proper spacing.”
Pacers point guard Aaron Holiday had 10 assists in the game. Most of them resulted in Warren baskets.
"We just kept locked in, to be honest, and he was on fire," Holiday said. "He kept making shots, so we just kept trying to go to him. I kept trying to find him wherever I could. He did a good job tonight, for sure.”
Although Warren's 53 points were only the third-highest total in Pacers history -- bettered by Reggie Miller's 57 points against the Charlotte Hornets on April 28, 1992 and Jermaine O'Neal's 55 in 2015, he did tie two team records with his 20 field goals and nine three-pointers.
“It was amazing just having a hot hand and continuing to shoot," Warren said. "The worst thing that can happen is you miss, so you just don’t stop shooting because you miss a few shots.
"You’ve got to stay aggressive and keep firing away. My teammates saw that I was hot coming in at the start of the game. I just wanted to maintain that throughout the whole game."
As hot as he started, Warren finished just as strong.
He scored 12 points in the final four minutes, including a difficult fallaway three-pointer from the top of the circle to seal the victory that helped the Pacers move past the Sixers into the fifth seed in NBA's Eastern Conference.
"It was a special game," Warren said. "(I was) just locked in, just laser focused throughout the whole game ... making plays and just me being myself out there just doing what i do best, putting the ball in the basket.”
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