DENVER -- In his fourth game, Golden State Warriors rookie Yaxel Lendeborg put up 31 points, 12 rebounds and six assists in a 134-114 blowout road win over the Denver Nuggets on Monday night.
It has been a loud open to Lendeborg's NBA career, filled with outspoken headlines and gaudy statistics. His 87 points are the most from a Warriors rookie in his first four games since Wilt Chamberlain in 1959.
Lendeborg's teammate, Stephen Curry, was the last Warriors rookie to put up at least 30 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in a game, doing so back in 2010 when Lendeborg was 8 years old.
"Absolutely," Lendeborg said when asked if he's surprising himself. "Especially this game. I had 13 free throws. That's crazy. That's absurd for me."
The Warriors are without the injured and rehabbing Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody to open the season, leaving a void and major opportunity on the wing for Lendeborg.
At 24, he's an older rookie and considered an advanced prospect, but everyone on the ground level of the Warriors' operation has admitted he is further along than expected on the offensive end.
"He's able to impose his will on the game," Draymond Green said. "I don't care what age you are -- it's the NBA."
Despite Lendeborg's production, the Warriors had hobbled to an 0-3 start before Monday night and entered as seven-point underdogs against a rested Nuggets team at home, in danger of falling into an early-season spiral.
But they controlled action for much of the night and did so without needing a particularly aggressive Curry. The Warriors' star guard attempted only one first-half shot (a made 3) and they were still up four at halftime behind 15 Lendeborg points and six 3s from the veteran bench.
Curry lit it up in the third quarter, making all seven of his shots and finishing the night with an efficient 24 points on 8-of-8 shooting. It was only the second perfect shooting night in his legendary career.
But Curry didn't even have to contribute in the night's biggest moments. The Warriors outscored the Nuggets by seven in his 27 minutes and outscored Denver by 13 in the 21 minutes he rested.
That included a fourth-quarter closeout with Curry and Green on the bench while Lendeborg and fourth-year guard Brandin Podziemski (18 points, seven rebounds, five assists) put the game away.
Lendeborg missed seven of his eight 3s but dominated the second half with a parade of powerful downhill drives through Aaron Gordon, Nikola Jokic or whoever the Nuggets put in front of him. His 31 free throw attempts through four games are the seventh most in the NBA.
"He's as strong as an ox and skilled," Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. "You saw tonight. In all the critical moments of the game, we just put the ball in his hands. For a rookie to be that advanced already, it's extremely rare."
The loss dropped the Nuggets to a disappointing 1-2. Their lone win, an overtime comeback against the New Orleans Pelicans, included some boos from the home crowd that had Jokic critical of the team's fans postgame, saying those who booed didn't need to come back.
After Monday's loss, he reiterated the point.
"I'm sticking to what I said," Jokic said. "I think they are not real fans."
The Nuggets had a chance to make another late run like the frantic fourth-quarter comeback a couple of nights earlier, but Lendeborg slammed the door with a driving assist for an Al Horford 3, a transition alley-oop finish and then another assist for a Gui Santos 3.
Curry and Green didn't even have to reenter the game down the stretch, watching their rookie bring it across the finish line.
"Yax has that [power drive] ability combined with his passing skills," Kerr said. "He's going to be a guy who closes games like he did tonight."