Warriors continue to fall after loss to Pelicans

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 virtually everywhere – off their boots, into the opponent’s 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 quarter.

“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 that led to 18 points.

It was almost the second game in a row. Golden State’s reserves mounted a second-half comeback after using 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 it well enough.”

They fell behind by as many as 14 points and scored their third-fewest points of any half of the season (trailing 46-39 at the break) before a split-action assist from Draymond Green to Brandin Podziemski gave them their first lead, 61-59, midway through the third quarter.

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Green, who missed Golden State’s 129-118 win over Denver on Sunday, returned and helped set up a fair number 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 remaining, but the Pelicans answered with a 15–3 run after a failed coach’s challenge by Steve Kerr that would have turned over a Zion Williamson basket, which 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 on Wednesday. Golden State is the only team in the Western Conference’s top eight with a losing record away from home (second-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 victory over one of the West’s best teams was absent Tuesday during the opening tip at the Smoothie King Center.

“We didn’t do that well offensively,” Kerr said. “The spacing was bad. In transition, we probably had three potential layups in the first half. We didn’t cut, we didn’t run to the rim. We didn’t get into the corners. We just looked a little disjointed. I thought their pressure took us out of some things early.”

They missed 16 of their first 21 shots from the field (23.8%) and did not reach 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 everyone involved with the Warriors on Tuesday night wasn’t someone 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-for-12 shooting.

Statistics of the game

21-for-95 (22.1%) | Despite the Warriors’ offensive struggles, the game never got away from them. On the other side of the room, the Pelicans had just as much trouble scoring the basketball.

New Orleans made just 10 of 40 shots from beyond the perimeter, but the Warriors were even worse, converting 11 of 45 attempts (23.3%).

Next

The Warriors head to Memphis, where they will play the second half of their 11th straight regular season. They are 5-5 in the second back-to-back game this season, falling to 6-5 in the first half with their loss to the Pelicans.

Golden State is already expected to be without Curry (knee), Butler (knee) and Porzingis (illness) as well as De’Anthony Melton (knee), who has not yet been medically cleared to play games on consecutive days. Horford (teen) was in New Orleans expecting to play against the Grizzlies after scoring 22 points with six 3-pointers in their win against Denver.