NEW ORLEANS – The lineup left the Golden State Warriors feeling powerful and their opponents feeling fearful. As much as the Warriors' "Death Lineup" scared opponents with their talent, experience and smarts, however, coach Steve Kerr became scared to use it.
That hesitation stopped, and the move played a major factor in the Warriors finishing with a 118-92 Game 4 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday. It might sound weird given their talent and experience, but Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andre Iguodala, Kevin Durant and Draymond Green all started together for the first time since the 2016-17 season. The implications yielded both reminders of their championship dominance and significance surrounding a Game 4 win that cemented a 3-1 series lead in the Western Conference semifinals.
"You're on the road and threatened, you put your five best guys out there," Kerr said. "To start like that sets a great tone."
With four All-Stars (Curry, Thompson, Durant, Green) and a former All-Star (Iguodala) on the floor at the same time, the Warriors had too much talent, too much versatility and too much smarts to account for all at once.
That enabled Durant to score 38 points while shooting 15-for-27 from the field, marking his third 30-point game this postseason and 51st overall. Though Curry showed mixed progress with his shooting accuracy in his third game since nursing a left knee injury (8-for-17 shooting), the Death Lineup still created both open looks (23 points) and less pressure to do everything.
So why did the Warriors delay using this lineup combination? Simple. They had overlapping injuries to all of their players throughout the 2017-18 season. Kerr wanted to preserve his stars' minutes, while also accommodating Curry's in the past week after sitting out the previous 5 ½ weeks because of a left knee injury. And Kerr wanted to save it for when the games counted.
"Anytime we've been in any danger over the years, we've gone to this lineup whether it's as a starting group or extra minutes. Obviously the lineup worked or whatever. But it's not about the lineup," Kerr said. "It's really not. It's about how hard guys play and how focused they are. The effort at both ends tonight was night and day from Game 3."
Though Anthony Davis had 26 points for New Orleans, he shot only 8-for-22 from the field.
