NBA results: Buddy Hield leads the Warriors to a 124-106 victory over the Pelicans

After one quarter, things looked difficult for the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday night. Playing on TNT and without injured Steph Curry and Andrew Wiggins, the Warriors fell behind by 17 points after one quarter against the New Orleans Pelicans. But after that, the Warriors turned up the defense and Reggie Miller fired up Buddy Hield to inspire Golden State to a 124-106 victory.

Hield was the star with 28 points and seven three-pointers, including 19 points in the second quarter. After a halftime talk with Miller, who uncomfortably refused to share what he told the Warriors' new sharpshooter, he didn't miss a shot. All we know is that he was a different player after the break and sank all six of his threes. He is now 20 of 36 from deep for the season.

The Warriors got 19 points and five assists from their temporary starting point guard Brandin Podziemski, who exemplified Golden State's effectively strong defense with numerous deflections, two blocks and a steal on Tuesday night. Demoted starter Jonathan Kuminga came alive with 17 points and three assists, one of which was a really nice feed to Trayce Jackson-Davis for a dunk.

According to this site's charter, whenever we mention “Kuminga” and “Dunk” in the same sentence, we are contractually obligated to record footage of Kuminga dunking. So here's a very nice reverse dunk from JK on a breakway.

On the advice of my lawyer, there is another aspect here.

But the truly surprising play came from Lindy Waters III, who did everything for the Warriors in 31 minutes, scoring 21 points with a plus/minus of +26. Not only did Waters score, he also grabbed nine rebounds, dished out four assists, got a block and a steal, and grabbed an improbable defensive rebound coming back from a missed third-down corner.

Draymond Green had the unenviable task of slowing down Zion Williamson, who had 31 points for the Pelicans and is almost unstoppable one-on-one. But Green made his night difficult by drawing two tackles on the All-Star forward, one of which came off a blocking call on a Kerr challenge. Yes, Draymond convinced his coach to call a foul, and he was right! This accounted for two of Williamson's seven turnovers, three of which were due to fouls.

Green also had seven assists and a huge three-pointer to stop the Pelicans' 6-0 run and bring the Warriors within four points at halftime.

That led to a 40-point third quarter, then a 19-point fourth quarter for Hield, and finally Kerr clearing his bench with 2:43 left, a true “strength in numbers” moment that also included Pat Spencer and allowed Moses Moody to get on the board to pad his three-point shooting numbers with two late three-pointers.

Steve Kerr brought Brandin Podziemski and Moses Moody into the starting lineup and Jonathan Kuminga to the bench. The first result? Confusion.

The Pelicans completely blew away the Warriors in the first quarter, which they won 31-14. New Orleans ended the quarter with a 13-0 run. The duo of Williamson and Brandon Ingram looked spectacular, finishing the game with a total of 61 points on 24-for-36 shooting. Crucially, there were just five total assists as the Warriors finished with a huge lead of 34-22.

Jose Alvarado contributed four assists and a steal for the Pels, a clear rebuke to Tony Hinchcliffe.

Typically, when you see a team give up a huge run at the end of a nightmare quarter, the Warriors are constantly turning the ball over or giving up fast breaks. Instead, the Warriors simply failed to get a shot off the ground, while also struggling to connect on defense in rarely used player combinations.

Some of that was the Pelicans' defense, like when Yves Missi blocked Jonathan Kuminga at the rim. But most of all, it was the bane of all hot three-point shooting teams: regression to average. Hield made more than 50% of his three-point shots before the game, but all of his shots went jingly wide of the rim before halftime. Overall, the team scored 6 of 23 goals in the first half and then scored six of seven goals early in the third quarter.

The problem was clearly that Hield wasn't coming off the bench. His aspiring Sixth Man of the Year campaign cannot survive with him in the starting lineup. Kerr corrected the oversight at halftime and started Lindy Waters III for the second half. Hield responded in the second half with five straight shots in the third and fourth quarters, four of them from behind the arc.

The Warriors scored 40 points in the third period, but the quarter break didn't appease Hield, who hung up 13 in the 4th quarter as the Dubs tried to run away from the game. He made all six of his three-point attempts after halftime and scored 19 points in the 4th.

He also looked very animated towards the commentary table, where Reggie Miller was sitting with Kevin Harlan. Near the end of the game, Miller admitted that he had a “conversation” with Hield at halftime, which tells me that Joe Lacob should do everything he can to get Miller to talk nonsense about Hield at crucial moments.

Golden State also got nine hard rebounds from Kevon Looney and an incredible five steals from Kyle Anderson, who was as good at shooting as he was good at forcing turnovers. “Slow Mo” shot 0-for-9 from the field and 0-for-6 from behind the arc (one of which was a desperation shot) and blasted a three-pointer. But he's so good at everything else that he still managed +9 in his 20 minutes.

Those teams will repeat this on Wednesday night, with the Warriors possibly getting lucky and having a minutes restriction on Williamson. Maybe they don't need luck with their twin flamethrowers Hield and Waters.