Warriors Rout Pelicans 138-87, Becoming the First Team to Follow an 0-3 Start With Eight Straight Wins

Three weeks ago the Golden State Warriors were 0-3 and the season already looked like an argument. On Monday night at Chase Center they finished beating the New Orleans Pelicans 138-87, and the argument now is about record books. The win was Golden State's eighth in a row. No team in NBA history had ever opened a season with three losses and then won its next eight games — until this one did it while barely breaking a sweat.

73 points from three players

The scoring came in a wave and from everywhere. Stephen Curry scored 25 points in just over 20 minutes of work, with five rebounds and four three-pointers. Brandin Podziemski matched him with 25 points, five three-pointers and four assists. And rookie Yaxel Lendeborg, the least expected name of the three, scored 23 points with seven rebounds and four assists. Lendeborg had 16 of his points and Podziemski 15 of his in the first half, and the three combined for 73 points on a night when Golden State shot 54.9 percent, made 21 three-pointers, piled up 37 assists and outscored New Orleans 52-38 in the paint. Charles Bassey, the team's rebounding leader with 10 boards, spent his night finishing alley-oops and turning shots away at the other end.

Curry's 25 came with a milestone attached: Statitudes' game notes counted it as the 757th 20-point game of his career. He needed barely 20 minutes to get there, which tells you how early this stopped being a contest — by the late stages the starters were watching the bench protect a lead that kept growing anyway.

A perfect homestand, a piece of history

The 51-point margin was the fourth-largest victory in Warriors history and their biggest since a 157-101 win at Portland in April 2023. It was also the largest winning margin by any team in the NBA this season. The win closed a 6-0 homestand, and it pushed Golden State to 8-3 — a record that reads ordinary until you remember the first three games of the season all went the other way. Plenty of teams recover from slow starts. Nobody had ever recovered like this, immediately and without a single stumble: 0-3, then eight straight wins, the last of them by 51.

The other side of 51

New Orleans arrived short-handed and left with a franchise record it never wanted. Derik Queen led the Pelicans with 16 points, four rebounds and three blocks, but Zion Williamson was rested and Trey Murphy III and Yves Missi were also out, along with reserve Trendon Watford. Even at full strength this would have been a hard night; down four rotation players it became the worst regular-season loss in franchise history. It was only the second defeat by 50 or more points in the franchise's history at all — the other was a 121-63 playoff loss to Denver in 2009, back when the team was known as the Hornets. A four-game winning streak has given way to three straight losses and a 4-7 record, and a night like this follows a team home.

The one cloud

If the night had a blemish for Golden State, it came less than two minutes in. Brandon Williams left the game in the first quarter with a left hamstring injury after playing under two minutes and scoring four quick points, and he did not return. On a night when everything else went right, his status is the one thing the Warriors will be watching this week. The full box score and play-by-play are in the Game Center for Pelicans at Warriors, and Flagg's 43-point night in Dallas is covered in full in our Mavericks-Pacers story. Season lines for Curry, Podziemski and the rest live in the NBA Stats Hub.