The Golden State Warriors finally shook up their roster less than 24 hours before the 2026 NBA trade deadline, shipping out Jonathan Kuminga and Buddy Hield to the Atlanta Hawks and Trayce Jackson-Davis to the Toronto Raptors. However, their return for those two trades was Kristaps Porzingis, who remains injured, for now, and a second-round pick. Thus, the team wasn't particularly impacted for Thursday's game against the Phoenix Suns, really only having to fill Hield's minutes in the rotation, but there was still a sense of anxious excitement, seeing as it would be the first game without any trade rumors hanging overhead.

The Warriors would have to play without Steph Curry once again, though, as he remained out with runner's knee. The consolation would be that the Suns were without Devin Booker, but it would still be a tall task for the Dubs.

When the Suns went up 14 early in the fourth quarter, it looked like the Warriors really did just need Curry back on the floor in order to do anything and make any real evaluations of the team, but a gritty comeback effort led by unbelievable defense allowed the Warriors to grind their way back and eventually steal the win on the road, 101-97. 

The Warriors had been in a bit of a rut, losing their last game badly to the Philadelphia 76ers and simply going through it with the trade rumors as an entire team. The win, and the manner in which it was achieved, seemed to light a new fire in the Warriors, though.

Celebrations were rampant on the court immediately after the final buzzer, and reporters indicated that the locker room was extremely loud with excitement, too. Steve Kerr put it into words that he's quite familiar with.

"Felt like we won the championship. We needed that."

Kerr specifically discussed how much it alleviated a locker room that had really just been going through it as of late.

"The emotion of everything the last two days, losing three of our guys who were beloved in the locker room, losing Jimmy to a season-ending injury, and Steph being out. Everything has just been tough this last week, or 10 days, or whatever it is since Jimmy's been out, and it felt like a great team win where everyone just fought and competed and stayed with it, and it's a beautiful thing to watch."

The Warriors got some incredible individual performances, including a career-high 20 points from Pat Spencer, Gui Santos' fifth-straight game scoring in double figures, and clutch buckets from Al Horford and De'Anthony Melton in crunch time, but it was the overall team effort on defense that sealed the win.

The Warriors allowed just 15 points in the fourth quarter from the Suns and held them to a single made field goal in the final six minutes of the game. In fact, once the Suns took their 14-point lead with nine and a half minutes to go, the Warriors closed the game on a 25-7 run that sucked the life out of the Suns' offense.

The rotation clearly reflected the hot hands. Santos played 36 minutes, the first time he's ever played more than 28 minutes in a game, Spencer was out there for 32 minutes, and Melton was +21 in 25 minutes in his first start of the season. On the flip side, Brandin Podziemski, who went 0-3 from the field and was -21 in the game, played just 12 minutes, and Draymond Green played only 24 minutes and sat a majority of the fourth quarter.

It'll be interesting to see how the team operates once Curry returns and whenever Porzingis enters the fray. Either way, it's clear that the Warriors picked up a statement win over the Suns on Thursday night.