Warriors at Pelicans
The Golden State Warriors were on the verge of dropping back-to-back regular-season games for the first time since 2015 before exploding in the fourth quarter at Minnesota on Sunday. The Warriors will try to carry that momentum south when they visit the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday.
Golden State looked bad in a 110-89 loss at Memphis on Saturday and was playing its fourth game in five nights at Minnesota on Sunday looking very much like another loss was coming before outscoring the Timberwolves 38-20 in the fourth quarter en route to a 116-108 win. "It's a lot of travel," Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters. "We didn't have great energy (Sunday) but you could see the resilience in the fourth quarter and the way our guys really came up with four or five straight stops to start the quarter, which was huge." The Pelicans displayed some resiliency of their own in a 120-119 overtime triumph at Phoenix on Sunday that snapped a five-game slide. "I thought we did a good job really in the last 15 minutes of the game," New Orleans coach Alvin Gentry told reporters. "I thought we made good hustle plays, made tough plays and then, obviously, we made enough plays execution-wise to win the game."
TV: 8 p.m. ET, CSN Bay Area (Golden State), FSN New Orleans
ABOUT THE WARRIORS (21-4): Kevin Durant got all the headlines when he signed in the offseason, but it was fellow free-agent signee David West drawing the praise after Golden State's latest win. West, a traditional power forward, is playing center on the second unit for the Warriors and is earning his minutes on the defensive end. "It's just our switching flexibility," West told reporters after making two defensive plays against Minnesota guards down the stretch. "Felt like we were letting guys come off screens a little bit too easy. They were comfortable. So I just jumped (Andrew) Wiggins one time and forced him to take a long contested two. And then (Ricky) Rubio's got kind of a high dribble when he gets by you, so I just saw an opportunity to poke it loose."
ABOUT THE PELICANS (8-17): New Orleans continues to search for ways to help Anthony Davis on the offensive end and found some spark off the bench on Sunday from point guard Tim Frazier. The 26-year-old Penn State product collected 14 points, 11 rebounds, 11 assists and five steals in his first career triple-double. "I think, with Tim, you just have to understand he’s just a tough kid and that’s what we really like about him," Gentry told reporters. "We ask him to do a lot of things. We ask him to do things that all-star guards do. He never says anything. He just goes out and gives us the effort."
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Pelicans PG Jrue Holiday (toe) returned from a three-game absence on Sunday and scored 23 points in 40 minutes.
2. Warriors SG Klay Thompson is in a 4-of-19 slump from 3-point range in the last three games.
3. Golden State took the last nine in the series, including two games earlier this season and a first-round sweep in the 2015 playoffs.