Takeaways from Warriors' Loss to Thunder: Dubs Had Kuminga Replacement All Along

The severely short-handed Golden State Warriors (32-31) couldn't quite complete their comeback against the severely short-handed Oklahoma City Thunder (50-15), losing 104-97 on Saturday at Paycom Center.

Gui Santos had a career-high 22 points, and Brandin Podziemski and Draymond Green chipped in with 17 and 16 points, respectively.

Shai Gilgeous had a game-high 27 points, including the dagger three to put the Thunder up by five with 42.8 seconds to go.

Each team was missing several key players. Among them were Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler, Moses Moody, De'Anthony Melton, Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams and Alex Caruso.

Here are two takeaways from Saturday's game.

Santos Is Emerging with Opportunity from Kuminga Saga/Trade

Gui Santos was more or less a rotation afterthought for much of this season. At the beginning of the year, Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green and Jonathan Kuminga were getting almost all of the forward minutes.

Kuminga was given lots of opportunity until Dec. 6, when he was shooting 1-of-10 against the Cavaliers. For that game, he got benched down the stretch for Santos.

That started a run of more playing time for Santos, but he was still not getting a consistent 20 minutes. If Kuminga had decided to put all of his focus into helping the Warriors any way he can, it's likely he'd still be on the roster and we wouldn't have this Santos emergence.

Instead, the flipped switched for Santos in late January, and now he's performing almost as well as Kuminga did in his best stretches.

In his last 15 games, Santos is averaging 14.9 points on 55.4 percent shooting and 5.9 rebounds.

He's not the transition dynamo Kuminga is, but he is a better three-point shooter, as he's at 38.2 percent in his great stretch.

I stand by my take that the Warriors should have packaged Kuminga with first-round picks to get a big upgrade. That they didn't could cap their ceiling for next season when Jimmy Butler returns.

But I think it's fair to say they have run into one amazing outcome from trading Kuminga. Santos' emergence is the best thing that's happened to the Warriors this season. He'll be a key piece of the puzzle for at least the next two seasons.

Warriors' Super-Big Lineup Could Be Secret Weapon when Steph Returns

Down the stretch, the Warriors went to a lineup that could be described as one guard, two power forwards and two centers. It was jarring to see after how often they have chosen to play small this year.

Yes, the Warriors had Draymond Green, Gui Santos, Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford all on the court at once with Brandin Podziemski.

The lineup entered the game down 99-94 with 4:22 to go. It proceeded to shut out the Thunder for the next three-and-a-half minutes, but the issue is it only scored three points in that stretch.

Of course, the main reason the Warriors went to this lineup is because Stephen Curry, De'Anthony Melton and Moses Moody were inactive. But imagine if the Warriors replaced Podz with Curry and used this lineup in future clutch situations.

Sure, the lineup would have issues defending the ball, but it would have the length to bother drivers trying to score at the rim. And it would probably rebound extremely well.

Offensively, it might get clunky having so much size but not much athleticism surrounding Curry, but Curry has found ways to score in all sorts of weird lineups in his career, so it might actually work.