(Photo: NBA.com)
New Orleans Pelicans (11-11) at Golden State Warriors (13-12)
Tipoff: Tues. 12/17/2013, 7:30 PM PDT
Location: ORACLE Arena, Oakland, CA
TV: CSN Bay Area | Radio: KNBR 680 AM
Livetweet: @LetsGoWarriors (by @goldenstatenz)
The Golden State Warriors return home tonight and will face the New Orleans Pelicans. This is the Warriors’ second out of three games against the Pelicans this season. In the first game, the Warriors squeaked out a 102-101 win in New Orleans last month.
On Sunday, the Warriors lost to the Phoenix Suns in Phoenix by a score of 106-102. The Warriors are the best three-point shooting team in the league, as they shoot 41.6 percent from three as a team. However, the Suns looked like the best three-point shooting team on Sunday night. They shot an impressive 13-for-27 from three-point range and hit a few timely three-point shots that sealed their win.
The Warriors are stuck in a bit of a rut recently. They’re losing games they should be winning, and they’re failing to play their brand of basketball. The absence of Andre Iguodala partially explains their poor defensive play recently, but the Warriors need to find a way to win without him. They know how competitive the Western Conference is, and they know it’s still early in the season. It’s time for the Warriors to step up and face the adversity fearlessly. Stephen Curry shared his thoughts on the Warriors’ recent slump.
Monte Poole writes:
“We have to fight our way out of it,” the point guard said. “I think we have what it takes. I know we have what it takes. I know we’re a good team. But you can’t call yourself a good team with that record.
“It doesn’t really matter what I say. It’s how we go out Tuesday against New Orleans and try to turn it around.”
Marcus Thompson reported that Mark Jackson shared the same frustration.
“We’ve seen us play better basketball,” Jackson said Monday. “I just don’t think right now we’ve put together 48 minutes of our brand of basketball. It’s not acceptable. … We’re aware of it. But the only way out of it is to do something about it. Too often now we continue to make the same mistakes. But we understand where we are, and we’ll be just fine. There’s no question about that. But you’ve got to state the obvious.”
But Jackson stopped short of making any lineup changes, as we reported:
Jackson said he’s not in a situation where his players will be “going to the principal’s office if you turn the basketball over. We’ve won ball games with high turnovers. We’ve got to have game plan discipline. We’ve got to take care of the basketball we’ve got to defend at a high level. We’re doing that but we’re doing it in spurts. When we’re at our best we do it all game long.”
If the Warriors want to bounce back and beat the Pelicans tonight, they have to defend the three-point line. As a team, the Pelicans shoot 38.8 percent from three, and their star three-point shooter, Ryan Anderson, shoots an impressive 44.1 percent from three. The Warriors let the Suns shoot far too well from three on Sunday, and they don’t want to get into a shootout with the Pelicans. Even though the Warriors have the Splash Brothers, the Pelicans can shoot the three ball too.
The Pelicans, like the Warriors, have dealt with injuries to some key players. They’re currently without their promising young big man, Anthony Davis. He’s out with a fracture in his left hand, and he’s expected to be out another couple weeks. In his absence, the Pelicans have gone 4-3 over their last seven games.
As always, the Warriors need to take care of the ball as well. Sloppy turnovers have been one of the Warriors’ biggest problems so far this season. The Warriors average 17.2 turnovers per game, which is the third most in the NBA. In the past 12 games, they have given up 21.2 points off turnovers per game, and they’ve only scored 14.9 points off their opponents’ turnovers. If the Warriors can avoid sloppy and costly turnovers, they’ll hopefully get off to a better start and give themselves a better chance at winning.
Keys to the game:
1. Defend the three-point line: As mentioned before, the Warriors don’t want to get into a shoot out with the Pelicans. They can shoot the three, and the Warriors don’t want to let another opponent shoot well from behind the three-point line.
2. Value the basketball: The Warriors need to take care of the basketball and value each possession. The Warriors have been turning the ball over way too much recently, so they need to eliminate their sloppy play to win tonight.
3. Attack the paint: With Davis out, the Pelicans are much weaker on the front line. Both Andrew Bogut and David Lee should be able to handle the Pelicans’ frontcourt of Anderson and Jason Smith, but all of the Warriors, not just their big men, should attack the paint and stay aggressive.
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