With aninjury report more impressivethan their starting five, the Warriors couldn’t overcome a sloppy start to their road trip against the lowly Pelicans.
The Warriors threw the ball just about everywhere — off their shoes, into opponents’ hands, out of bounds, off every inch of iron — except the bottom of the net in a 113-109 loss to the second-worst team in the Western Conference.
Without Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler, Al Horford or Kristaps Porzingis, Golden State fell behind 31-19 by the end of the first quarter and didn’t hold a lead until midway through the third.
“With the injuries we have, we have to play well to win. I don’t think we played well tonight,” saidcoach Steve Kerr, whose team committed 21 turnovers leading to 18 points.
It was almost the second consecutive game Golden State’s reserves completed a second-half comeback after they used a 33-18 fourth quarter to beat Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets on Sunday.
“The game was right there for us,” Kerr said. “We just couldn’t execute well enough.”
They fell behind by as many as 14 points and scored their third-fewest points in any half this season (trailing 46-39 at intermission) before a split-action assist from Draymond Green to Brandin Podziemski gave them their first lead, 61-59, midway through the third quarter.
Green, who missed Golden State’s 129-118 win over Denver on Sunday, returned and helped set up a fair share of open shots, but the Warriors failed to convert many of them.
Golden State came back to take an 86-85 lead with 7:39 to go, but the Pelicans answered with a 15-3 run following a failed coach’s challenge by Steve Kerr that would have overturned a basket by Zion Williamson that instead turned into a three-point play.
Williamson led the Pelicans with 26 points — 10 in the fourth quarter.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
