Barber: Warriors lose their identity in 119-100 loss to Pelicans

NEW ORLEANS

Cut the Warriors some slack. They’re not the first people you know who couldn’t find their IDs after waking up face-down on Bourbon Street. I mean, I can’t confirm that they drank Sazeracs all Thursday night in the French Quarter. But the Warriors definitely forgot who they were on Friday as they lost to the Pelicans, 119-100, in Game 3 of their Western Conference semifinal series.

It’s a strange recurring disorder for this team. The Warriors were very good in the 2017-18 regular season. And they’ve been better than that in the postseason. But every once in a while, they black out, enter a state of temporary amnesia and wake up believing they’re the Phoenix Suns or the Santa Cruz Warriors.

I don’t know who they thought they were Friday, but it certainly wasn’t the Two-Time World-Champion, Light-Years-Ahead-of-the-Rest-of-the-NBA Golden State Warriors.

The squad that took the floor at Smoothie King Center looked like the anti-Warriors, in so many ways.

Most fundamental was the lack of ball movement. Remember the guys who ran the Pelicans off the court in Game 1 and outlasted them in Game 2 at Oracle Arena? If you see them, please call the missing player hotline at (555) WAR-RIOR. Because they were nowhere to be found in Game 3.

The Warriors led the NBA in assists this year, at 29.3 per game. They were above 30 for most of the campaign, until a late-season swoon. Unselfish and creative passing is a hallmark of the Steve Kerr era - the system got a huge jump-start from Kerr’s former assistant, Alvin Gentry, now the Pelicans head coach - and it was on display, in its highest form, in Oakland recently.

In the first two games of the series, the Warriors had assists on 79.3 percent of their made field goals (69 of 87). In Game 3, it was 62.9 percent (22 of 35), and the rate was lower than that in the first three quarters, before things got out of hand. Gone was the flow that has made Warriors basketball a joy to watch over the past four years. Gone was the extra pass that elevates an offensive set from a good shot to a great one.

Well, perhaps it wasn’t gone entirely, because the Pelicans were zipping perfect passes all over the court. Rajon Rondo, their veteran point guard, had nearly as many assists (21) as the Warriors. These aren’t hollow statistics, either. They’re indicative of how much the ball is moving, and how effectively.

Kerr credited the Pelicans rather than admitting his team had been body-snatched.

“Their defense was great, they were the aggressors,” he said. “I thought they brought the necessary force to the game on their home floor. And these are the ebbs and flows of a playoff series - especially when you get past the first round, everybody’s really good. A team that just swept Portland in Round 1, and on their home floor down 2-0, it’s kind of what you would expect.”

Speak for yourself, Coach. Vegas had the Warriors as four-point favorites for the game.

The Warriors’ collective memory loss was not limited to their stars, either. In fact, it was more obvious when the substitutions started coming.

Everyone knew that Davis would be almost impossible to guard, and that shooting guard Jrue Holiday and forward Nikola Mirotic were red hot coming into the series. But Golden State had several major advantages on paper, and one of them was the two benches. The Warriors’ reserves have been a major part of their title runs, and should dominate New Orleans’.

Instead, the Pelicans’ bench outscored the Warriors’ bench 23-6 over the first three quarters. Shaun Livingston, Golden State’s reliable backup point guard, scored zero points in 13 minutes during that time frame; Andre Iguodala, one of the NBA’s best sixth men, had two points in 20 minutes.

“It’s big for us to match up in that way,” Holiday said. “We know that their bench is gonna come off and score, and try to be aggressive. I do think we need to go back at them. That’s key.”

These couldn’t have been the real Warriors. If they were, the third quarter would have looked a lot different.

The period after halftime is, traditionally, a 12-minute burial ceremony for Golden State’s opponents. Even as they advanced to the NBA Finals in each of Kerr’s first three seasons here, the Warriors played a lot of close first halves. Then they’d hit the accelerator in the third quarter, and it was bye-bye Trail Blazers or Jazz or Cavaliers.

Friday night, the Pelicans owned the third quarter. They held a modest 62-56 lead at the half - nothing close to making them feel comfortable against the defending champions. But they blew out the visitors in the third, outscoring the Warriors 30-19. Anthony Davis was virtually unstoppable in the quarter, scoring 14 points on 6-of-9 shooting.

The Smoothie King crowd cheered every minute of it, no doubt surprised as much as delighted.

Frankly, even Steve Kerr seems like an impostor these days. The Warriors coach is famed for his playoff lineup tinkering. It has been a difference-maker in previous postseasons - like in 2015, when the Warriors basically stopped guarding Memphis’ Tony Allen in a West semifinal series, and profited when Allen proved unable to score; or three weeks after that, when Kerr started Iguodala for the first time all season against the Cavaliers, and the veteran wound up as NBA Finals MVP.

Kerr’s touch is eluding him now. He started Nick Young in place of Curry in Games 1 and 2. Young didn’t do much of anything, but it was a nonfactor because the Warriors were otherwise dominant. This time, Kerr’s surprise was to start JaVale McGee at center; the big man hadn’t played a single minute in Game 2.

And this one was a flop. McGee wound up with just two points, and had a plus-minus of -10 in 9 minutes of action.

Before the game, Gentry acknowledged that he expected Kerr to go with his small lineup - that is, with Draymond Green playing center. Gentry was probably thrilled when it was McGee who ambled out for the opening tip.

Will the Warriors be returning to small ball in the near future?

“I do expect that,” Green said. “We’ve been successful with it. So I 100 percent expect it.”

Personally, I 90 percent expect it. It makes perfect sense. But I believe there’s a small chance Kerr and the Warriors will forget their identities again in Game 4. If they do, against this suddenly reinvigorated Pelicans team, we may be headed back to Oakland with the teams tied 2-2.

You can reach columnist Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post.