The Golden State Warriors defeated the New Orleans Pelicans on Saturday at Oracle Arena to kick off the second round of the 2018 NBA Playoffs. Here’s what we can take away from Game 1.
A statement was made Saturday night at Oracle Arena: never, ever doubt the Golden State Warriors. Like, ever. Just don’t do it.
Because once you do, they’ll probably end up going off for a 123-101 win against the New Orleans Pelicans to start the second round of the 2018 NBA Playoffs — or you know, something like that.
The night started off pretty close with the Warriors leading the Pelicans by a single point after the first quarter. After watching the Dubs slightly struggle against the San Antonio Spurs in the first round, I’m pretty certain a fair amount of people watching Golden State’s first game against New Orleans foresaw another highly-contested game.
No one could have foreseen a 41-point second quarter. No one would have predicted Anthony Davis ending the night a game-low -27. No one could have anyone guessed he would notch just 21 points on 20 attempts in 33 minutes.
And considering how impressive Jrue Holiday, Nikola Mirotic and Rajon Rondo looked against the Portland Trail Blazers in the Pelicans’ first round sweep, I’m sure you’d be hard pressed to find someone who had previously thought the trio would combine for a mere 11-of-33 (33.3 percent) from the field.
But all of those things happened, and everything right just seemed to go right for the Dubs in Game 1. Can we expect those same Golden State Warriors to show up on Tuesday for Game 2 in Oakland? Maybe. We’ll see.
Before then, let’s discuss a few of the takeaways I had from Game 1 at Oracle.