The Golden State Warriors news out of the Bay this morning is a 138-87 beatdown of the New Orleans Pelicans, the Warriors' eighth straight win, and a margin, 51 points, that tells you everything about how lopsided Monday night actually was. Stephen Curry needed only a little over 20 minutes to get his 25, Yaxel Lendeborg added 23 with seven boards and four assists, and Brandin Podziemski matched Curry with 25 of his own. By the time the benches cleared, Golden State had turned what should have been a competitive Western Conference matchup into batting practice.
That's the whole story in one line. Here's the rest of it.
Golden State Warriors injury news and why New Orleans looked so thin
The reporting out of the Bay described New Orleans as undermanned heading into Monday, and the final score backed that up without needing a single extra word. A Pelicans team that can field its full rotation is a different animal than the one that showed up at Chase Center. An 87-point output against a defense that wasn't exactly locking in for 48 minutes is the kind of number that shows up when depth gets stripped out of a lineup, not when a healthy roster just has a bad shooting night. I don't have the full list of who was out in front of me yet, but the final margin did the talking either way.
Curry passes DeRozan, keeps climbing
The number that matters here isn't the final score, it's 26,803. That's where Steph Curry sits now on the NBA's career scoring list, good for 16th all time after passing DeMar DeRozan's 26,800 on Monday. He got there going 6 for 10 from the floor with four threes, in a game he didn't need to play big minutes to win. Two nights earlier, in a 126-119 overtime win over Orlando, Curry dropped 41. Back-to-back nights of 41 and 25, with a scoring-list milestone sandwiched in between, is the kind of stretch that reminds you the guy is still doing this at an age when most shooting guards of his generation are doing TV.
checked the almanac: curry already owns the career three-point record outright, no asterisk, no argument. passing DeRozan for 16th on the scoring list is just more paperwork on a hall of fame plaque that was already signed, sealed, and mostly delivered.
The box score, side by side
| Player | Points | Rebounds | Assists |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stephen Curry | 25 | , | , |
| Yaxel Lendeborg | 23 | 7 | 4 |
| Brandin Podziemski | 25 | , | , |
Three Warriors at 23 or better, and Curry got there in barely 20 minutes of floor time. That's the kind of balance that makes a blowout snowball instead of leveling off, the way some lopsided games do once the starters sit. Golden State never let New Orleans find that level footing to begin with.
What this means for the standings conversation
Eight straight is a real number regardless of the opponent, and it comes on the heels of other teams around the league putting together their own runs. San Antonio won its ninth in a row Monday behind Victor Wembanyama's 40-point, nine-block night against Phoenix, and the Lakers pushed to six straight with Luka Doncic back from a one-game absence and dropping 32 points and 10 assists on Atlanta. Golden State's streak doesn't exist in a vacuum, it's part of a November where a handful of teams are separating early, and the Warriors have done it with Curry playing efficient, shorter minutes rather than needing to carry a heavier workload every night.
For New Orleans, the conversation is different. A 51-point loss against a team playing at that level is a rough data point for a Pelicans roster that's dealing with absences, and it's the kind of game a coaching staff tends to flush fast rather than dwell on. The margin says more about who wasn't in uniform than who was.
What's next
Golden State is back on the road Wednesday night to face the Houston Rockets, a quick turnaround that will test whether this stretch of easy wins has built real habits or just padded a streak against a shorthanded opponent. New Orleans, meanwhile, hosts Brooklyn on Wednesday, a chance to see whether some of Monday's missing pieces make it back into the rotation. Both situations are worth watching for what they reveal once the competition levels get closer to normal.
The bigger thread to track is Curry's health and workload. Twenty-some minutes for 25 points two nights after a 41-point overtime outing is a coaching staff managing a 37-year-old's legs in November with an eye on April. How Golden State handles his minutes the rest of this homestand will say a lot about how seriously they're treating the long game this season.
