Kevin Durant’s 38-point explosion guided his Golden State Warriors to a commanding 3-1 series lead against the New Orleans Pelicans, 118-92 in their Western semi-finals showdown.
In Game 3, the Warriors surrendered to the home-team Pelicans where they got buried with a 19-point margin. Today, Steve Kerr and his crew were able to avenge that where they took a lead as high as 26 points.
Quinn Cook who played with New Orleans early this season contributed 12 points. Dubs main guys Stephen Curry registered 23 while his fellow Splash Brother Klay Thompson added 13 points. Kevin Durant was above .500 from the field where he converted 15 of his 27 attempts.
The Pelicans struggled to find the bottom of the net, they were 36 percent from the field and horrible from behind the three-point area (4-of-26). Anthony Davis led his squad with 26 markers and 12 boards.
Apart from bad shooting, New Orleans also turned the ball over 19 times which translated to 21 Golden State points. Their bench was also limited to only 14 points compared to their 32 contribution in Game 3. E’Twaun Moore logged 20 points while Jrue Holiday added 19. Rajon Rondo had 6 points, 6 assists and 11 rebounds.
Golden State rediscovered their hot shooting after got clamped down two nights ago. They opened Game 4 by hitting six of their eight shots. Curry, Thompson and Durant each swished their first three-point attempt. With just 4 minutes in the first quarter, Golden State already mounted a 10-point lead.
In contrast, New Orleans bricked their eight shots in their first 10 attempts. Draymond Green extended the lead to 14 points after he hit the fourth three-pointer of the Warriors.
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Quinn Cook ballooned the Golden State’s big margin after he made a floater at the final moments of the first quarter, 33-15.
Although not in a good shooting form (37 percent), New Orleans used other areas like rebounding and high percentage free-throw shooting to keep their distance against the visiting team. The Pelicans able to close the gap and managed to trim down the lead to seven at the end of the second quarter. However, during the third quarter, Golden State stormed back and rebuild their lead.
