The Golden State Warriors came into the season as one of the surprising teams in the NBA from last year and so far they have been off to a good start and ahead of the holidays, the team will hit the road to play the New Orleans Pelicans starting up at 8:00 pm ET from New Orleans arena and the game will be streaming online from the NBA League Pass.
The Warriors are dealing with an injury to Andre Iguodala and that could be a big issue for the team come the next stretch of the schedule, as he is currently out indefinitely and that will be something very hard to overcome. The team comes into the game after losing to the Portland Trail Blazers in a tough battle that saw Klay Thompson scored 20 points and now the team is 8-6 on the season as they play the Pelicans. Golden State has been solid on the road and now they will have a back to back road trip game schedule with the Pelicans and then the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday and playing without Iguodala will surely make that tougher on the team. The warriors have been playing solid defense under coach Mark Jackson and they are also ranked sixth in assists and 11th in both rebounding and points per game.
Check here for the NBA live coverage for Golden State and New Orleans.
Iguodala is out indefinitely with a hamstring injury and he is not the first star to go down this week, as Marc Gasol is also out for that period of time, while Derrick Rose is now out for the season after needing to get surgery again on his other knee. The Warriors made a hard push for Dwight Howard in the offseason after upsetting the Denver Nuggets in the playoffs and taking the San Antonio Spurs to six games, but instead he opted for the Houston Rockets and the team snagged Iguodala instead. Stephen Curry. Thompson and Harrison Barnes must now step up big time for the Warriors, as the western conference is much deeper than the east and they will need to establish themselves as a solid team to get into the top half of the bracket.
Iguodala had to leave the game against the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday with the injury and he did not play in the game against the Blazers and now he will be out for quite some time and there's no timetable for his return. The Warriors have been dealing with a number of injuries this season, including to Toney Douglas as well and now they have one of their best players on the bench healing up as well. Iggy was averaging 12.9 points and six rebound when he went down and now the Warriors will have to make that up and the toughest place to do it likely will be on defense, where Iguodala is considered a very good player in the league.
The Pelicans were one of the worst teams in the league last season and the fact that they are 6-7 to start is an improvement after they traded for Tyreke Evans and Jrue Holiday in the offseason and now they will play the Warriors after losing to the Spurs. The team has the Sixers next on the road on Friday after the holidays and they come into the game scoring over 100 points per contest. The game is the last to tip off on Tuesday, as the Nets will play the Raptors, while the Lakers, Wizards, Magic and Hawks will also be in action.