San Francisco – The Warriors desperately needed a win tonight against the “hot” shooting New Orleans Pelicans. A win would put them ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers and maybe moved up to the 7th seed, in the play-in tournament. The Pelicans 114-109 victory over the Golden State crushed their chances of having home court for a play-in game.
The standings have been changing daily and will continue until the final game of the season is played on Sunday, April 15th. Until then all the Warriors can do is win their last game and wait to see who they’ll play. As for tonight, their loss was simply due to bad turnovers.
“The momentum shifted in the second quarter, I had way too many turnovers tonight,” said Stephen Curry. “They were the ones that are – not all turnovers are created equal, they were the ones that fueled transition, live ball ones. They took full advantage of pretty much every-single one and that little stretch in the second quarter just gave them life.”
New Orleans dominated in the second quarter and the remainder of the game. They made 10 3-pointers and out played the Warriors for three quarters. Leading by as much as 20 points, it was a continued chase for Golden State who never got the lead back. A quick turnaround for the Pelicans who were down 26-17 in the first period.
“We got stops,” CJ McCollum said. “I think we got stops in transition and that was the difference. Hit some threes in the second quarter and then tried to withstand some of the runs they had throughout the game.”
“I would say, I think our turnovers and our lack of movement on offense kind of hurt our defense a little bit,” said Klay Thompson. They made a big run and that was probably thing that hurt us the most.”
The Warriors loss to the Pelicans keeps them at the 10th spot awaiting who they’ll play away. At this point they don’t care who the opponent is, they just want a chance to advance to the playoffs. But, if they plan on reaching that goal, they need to take care of the ball better.
“Our turnovers killed us. We had really good control of the game in the first quarter,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. “Held them to 17, our defense was great. Then we just started turning it over. I thought (Jose) Alvarado came in, put a lot of pressure on the ball, we couldn’t execute offensively. I think they scored 15 points off our turnovers in that quarter alone. So that’s where the game flipped for sure.”
Curry posted his 28th game of 30-or-more points. He sank seven threes, his league-leading 17th game of seven-plus threes. He’s made a league-high 357 threes so far this season, the third most threes in a single season in NBA history. Curry owns five of the top six single-season three-point tallies in NBA history.
Trayce Jackson-Davis recorded his sixth double-double of the season. Tonight marked his 27th game of double-figure scoring, the second most such-games by a 2023 Second Round pick this season (GG Jackson ll – 34) and ninth game of double-figure rebounds. In his 15 starts this season, he’s averaging 11.5 points (68.5 FG%), 8.1 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 1.8 blocks in 25.7 minutes per game.
Draymond Green tallied his 19th double-double on the season with game-highs of 12 rebounds and 11 assists (fourth rebound/assist double-double). Green became the first player in NBA history to record a double-double without attempting a shot from the field or free throw line (Elias Sports Bureau).
Jonathan Kuminga missed tonight’s game due to a right pelvic contusion and Gary Payton ll missed his second consecutive game due to left calf tightness.
UP NEXT: The Warriors host the Utah Jazz on Sunday, April 14 (12:30 p.m. PDT) in their last contest of the 2023-24 regular season.
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