With an injury report more impressive than 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,” said coach 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.
What it means
The Warriors fell to 11-17 on the road with another game in Memphis looming Wednesday. Golden State is the only team among the top eight in the Western Conference with a losing record away from home (next-worst: Suns, 14-14).
Turning point
As soon as the Warriors’ charter flight left San Francisco, apparently.
Whatever momentum the team’s reserves built with their come-from-behind win over one of the West’s top teams was absent from the opening tip inside the Smoothie King Center on Tuesday.
“We did not execute very well offensively,” Kerr said. “Spacing was bad. Transition we had probably three potential lay-ups in the first half. We didn’t cut, we didn’t run to the rim. We didn’t get to the corners. We just looked a little disjointed. I thought their pressure early took us out of some stuff.”
They missed 16 of their first 21 shots from the field (23.8%) and didn’t get to the foul line until New Orleans was called for a three-second violation with 46 seconds left in the quarter.
MVP
Jonathan Kuminga | The best basketball played by anyone associated with the Warriors on Tuesday night wasn’t anyone in uniform in New Orleans. Jonathan Kuminga made an electric debut with the Hawks against the Wizards, scoring 27 points in 24 minutes on 9-of-12 shooting.
Stat of the game
21-for-95 (22.1%) | Despite the Warriors’ struggles offensively, the game never got away from them. On the other end of the floor, the Pelicans were having just as much trouble scoring the basketball.
New Orleans made only 10 of its 40 shots from beyond the perimeter, but the Warriors were even worse, converting 11 of 45 attempts (23.3%).
Up next
The Warriors head to Memphis, where they will play the second half of their 11th back-to-back of the season. They are 5-5 in the second game of back-to-backs this season, falling to 6-5 in the first half with their loss to the Pelicans.
Already without Curry (knee), Butler (knee) and Porzingis (illness), Golden State is also expected to be without De’Anthony Melton (knee), who has yet to be medically cleared to play games on consecutive days. Horford (toe) sat in New Orleans with the expectation of playing against the Grizzlies after scoring 22 points with six 3-pointers in their win against Denver.
