SAN FRANCISCO — Even with two of their best players out, the Warriors are looking like the contenders they were pegged to be before the season started.
Golden State has won five consecutive games for only the second time this season, capping off its homestand Friday night with a 108-99 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans.
The Warriors overcame a slow start on the second night of a back-to-back, trimming a 17-point deficit in the first quarter to three by halftime. While Golden State didn’t take over the third quarter in dominant fashion as it did in the last two games, the Warriors did enough to pull ahead out of the break.
The Pelicans tried to battle back in the fourth, but the Warriors weren’t having it.
Klay Thompson drilled a long 3 from a step outside the logo to give the Warriors a two-point lead with 3:50 left. Donte DiVincenzo would hit a 3 on Golden State’s next possession to build their advantage up to four.
The play of the game would happen moments later when DiVincenzo swooped in to grab the offensive rebound. He then passed it to a cutting Jonathan Kuminga who threw down a rim-rattling dunk that sent the home crowd into a frenzy and put the Warriors up for good.
“This was a game where we had to battle fatigue,” coach Steve Kerr said after the win. “We had to just gut it out and find a way.”
The Warriors have shown an improved level of focus and attention to detail on the defensive end, which has been vital to their success without Stephen Curry (leg injury) and Andrew Wiggins (undisclosed family matter). Getting stops and not fouling as much has helped them take control of games even when their 3-point shooting takes time to heat up.
Golden State has erased double figure deficits in each of their last four games and haven’t allowed more than 105 points in a game over their last five wins.
“It’s just a lot of grit,” Kerr said. “Every one of these wins it felt like it was marked by our team kind of getting over the hump. A lot of overcoming a lot of deficits, turning up the defense and grinding out games down the stretch.”
It begs the question: Has Golden State finally figured things out?
The Warriors would like to think so.
“It’s been exciting to see our team I think turn a corner,” Kerr said. “But we still need to go out and win on the road.”
And that’s where the Warriors’ next challenge lies.
Golden State plays eight of its next 10 games outside the Bay, kicking off a three-game road trip Sunday in Los Angeles against the Lakers.
While Chase Center has been kind to the Warriors, who are 27-7 at home, it’s been a totally different story on the road, where they’re 7-23.
The root of that discrepancy has been the team’s defense or lack thereof. Golden State owns the third-best defensive rating in the league at home (108.1), but the team’s defensive rating declines when it hits the road to 118.9 for the third-worst mark in the NBA.
Kerr said the Warriors’ past five games have been “the best and most consistent defense” the guys have played all season, which gives him confidence heading into this three-game cross-country swing, with stops in Los Angeles, Oklahoma City and Memphis. Kuminga and Thompson share Kerr’s optimism as well.
“We had a lot of downfalls and it wasn’t the end of the world, we knew we were going to pick it up at some point,” Kuminga said. “We are on a great path. I feel that we are just going to keep doing it even on the road.”
But just as quickly as Golden State climbed the Western Conference standings rankings to fifth place, the defending champs could fall. The 34-30 Warriors are one game out of the fourth seed, which would guarantee them home-court advantage for the first round, but they’re also only 1 1/2 games out of a spot in the play-in and four games from falling out all together.
That’s why with 18 games left, Thompson said there’s “no time to relax” even when Curry returns, which could happen as soon as Sunday’s matinee game against the Lakers.
“You just realize how important all these games are from here on out,” Thompson said. “We would aspire to have home-court [advantage] especially in the first round, so it’s a great challenge and it’s really out there for us to take, and so we’ve just got to embrace it.”
