The New Orleans Pelicans played their first game since firing head coach Willie Green on Saturday when they faced the Golden State Warriors on Sunday night in the Smoothie King Center.
Vice president of basketball operations Joe Dumars said he hadn’t seen any signs of what the Pelicans’ identity is when he explained Green’s dismissal.
Interim head coach James Borrego said he wanted to see his team play with “joy, effort and aggression” as it tried to make a fresh start.
It was just the first game, and there are 69 more to be played, but the performance in a 124-106 loss to the Warriors demonstrated little if any of what Dumars and Borrego were looking for.
Golden State (9-6) raced to a 16-point lead at the end of the first quarter and New Orleans (2-11) lost its fifth consecutive game. The Pelicans play the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, who have an NBA-best 13-1 record, on Monday night in the Smoothie King Center.
Moses Moody scored a career-high 32, Brandin Podziemski added 19, Jimmy Butler had 18 points and 10 rebounds, and former Pelican Buddy Hield scored 11 for the Warriors, whose 24 3-pointers were the most by a Pelicans opponent this season.
Trey Murphy scored 20 points, Jose Alvarado had 18, Jeremiah Fears had 17 and Saddiq Bey added 11 for New Orleans.
Draymond Green and Moody made consecutive 3-pointers to trigger a 12-4 run at the start of the third quarter, giving Golden State a 73-53 lead. The Pelicans got as close as 11 points, but the Warriors took an 85-71 lead into the fourth quarter and coasted.
“Our defense is lacking in communication,” Borrego said before the game. “The goal is that we improve in that tonight.”
The Pelicans didn’t achieve that goal.
The Warriors scored the most first-quarter points of any New Orleans opponent this season, rolling to a 44-28 lead after the first 12 minutes. That total was five more points than the previous high. Moody scored 21 points, making 7-of-8 3-pointers as Golden State made 10-of-16, many of which were uncontested.
The Pelicans’ defense did improve in the second quarter, and Murphy and Fears scored nine points each to help New Orleans get within four points. But the Warriors scored the final eight points of the quarter to take a 61-49 halftime lead.
One thing Borrego said before the game was still true after the loss: “We’re not going to figure it all out at once.”
