Preview: The Warriors look to extend their streak of dominance against the Pelicans

Game information

Who: Golden State Warriors (13-5) versus New Orleans Pelicans (10-8)

When: 5:30pm PST - Saturday, November 25

Where: Oracle Arena - Oakland, CA

How to watch: CSBA, FSNO

How to listen: 95.7 THE GAME

Enemy’s blog: The Bird Writes

Injury report

Last updated 11/25/2017 6:30am

Warriors: Kevin Durant (doubtful)

Pelicans: Solomon Hill, Omer Asik, Alexis Ajinca

The Pelicans have a streak of eight straight losses against the Warriors, recording their last win against us back in 2015. However to keep that streak alive, Golden State will not only have to battle the recent issues concerning their focus, but also the fatigue on zero days rest in this matchup against the most physically dominating front court in the league.

The game plan - clip their wings

On a positive note, the Warriors have made some strides defensively since their first matchup against the Pelicans over a month ago. Even though we can expect Demarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis to put up some gaudy numbers, if we can limit their role players’ production, we stand a good chance to win the game.

Former Warriors Ian Clark and Jordan Crawford torched us in that first game for a total of 27 points, combining to go a perfect 7-for-7 from deep.

If the Warriors commit to closing out hard and having sharper defensive rotations — things that were visibly absent in the early going of the season — we should be able to cut down their number of open looks.

Offensively, it took a tremendous effort by Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant to get the win against the Pelicans that first time around.

At the time of this writing, Durant is listed as doubtful for tonight’s game due to his ankle injury.

Hopefully the Warriors stay hot from yesterday’s game against the Bulls to offset some of the probable fatigue in what will be the second game of a back-to-back.

Some bird facts

Cousins and Davis continue to show doubters around the league that two big men can co-exist on the court. The sheer level of skill they exhibit is the reason behind the Pelicans’ ranking as one of the top ten offenses.

However, while they have been quite dominant on that end of the court, their lack of defense has been the limiting factor for the team’s win column. Defensively, the Pelicans rank in the bottom ten in the league.

Predictions

Final score: Warriors 116 - Pelicans 110

Leading scorer: Kevin Durant (if he plays) with 36 points

My 8-ball says: Ian Clark won’t hit a single 3-pointer