Warriors Taking a Champion's Step with Clutch-Time Play Against Pelicans

There's nothing more intimidating in sports than inevitability, the sense that no matter what you have done, no matter how large your lead, no matter how little time is left, the opponent will eventually overcome you.

For all the feelings the Golden State Warriors fostered in their foes during their spectacular season—appreciation, awe, even envy—a sense of inevitability hasn't been foremost among them.

The Warriors have been so devastating from the start of so many games, with a 10.1-point differential that easily outdistanced the next most dominant squad (surprisingly, the Clippers at 6.6) and was the greatest since the 66-win Celtics of 2007-08 (10.3) and the 69-win Bulls of 1996-97 (at 10.9), that they rarely gave themselves the opportunity to wriggle out of serious trouble.

No team in the NBA played in fewer games that required clutch minutes—defined as the final five minutes with a margin of five points or less—than Golden State's 31, and no team played fewer than their 95 such minutes, with the Hawks playing the next fewest (121) and the Suns playing the most (206). Memphis, the Warriors' likely next challenge once they polish off the Pelicans and the Grizzlies bounce the Trail Blazers, played 195, more than twice as many.

The Warriors hardly struggled in those situations. Rather, per 100 possessions, they were a plus-28.6, second in the NBA to Atlanta's 32.5. Still, there was cause to question how they, with their first-year coach and with only one player (reserve Leandro Barbosa) who has been past the second round, would handle the stress of the stretch, whether they could get other teams to snap before they did.

So far, so good.

Erasing a 20-point fourth-quarter deficit against the Pelicans on Thursday night should make the rest of the league nervous.

"We haven't been in that position a lot this year, but mental toughness and resilience is probably [among] our best traits," Klay Thompson later told reporters.

Gerald Herbert/Associated Press

They can see those characteristics, but some outside the Bay Area have not. But Golden State's overall poise under pressure, even more than the seeming impossibility of Stephen Curry's game-tying shot at the end of the fourth quarter, was undeniable in its 123-119 overtime win to go up 3-0 against New Orleans.

Each of those three games has required clutch time, for a total of eight minutes, and the Warriors have outscored the Pelicans, 29-13, during that time. Small sample size, for sure, and against an even less experienced opponent. It's still encouraging, however, and it bodes well for later rounds. So does the resourcefulness they've shown, winning even when one of their splash brothers—Curry, in Thursday's case—isn't rippling the net with the usual regularity.

In Game 3, Curry returned to the court with 7:43 remaining in the fourth quarter, the Warriors down by 17 and Pelicans forward Ryan Anderson primed to sink another free throw.

Curry made a step-back 19-footer with 5:50 left and two free throws with 5:33 remaining. From there, he short-armed a three-pointer from the right wing in transition, missed another to the right from the left wing in transition (with Harrison Barnes slamming in the carom), air-balled a short floater from the right side of the rim (with Draymond Green converting a putback from the other side) and widely missed a pull-up 27-footer (with Green gathering and then banking it in).

So Curry had gone 1-of-5, with none of the four misses even close, and the Warriors had still cut an 18-point lead to five with 17 seconds left in regulation, because they dug in on defense and crashed the glass.

Then Curry showed off his short shooter's memory, shot-faking a stumbling Jrue Holiday to Shreveport before draining a three-pointer from the top with 11 seconds left. And then, after aiming way long on a desperate fallaway, and after Marreese Speights grabbed the timeliest rebound since Chris Bosh grabbed LeBron James' carom in Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals, Curry somehow shot a perfect arc over one of the NBA's longest arms while being body-blocked into Bourbon Street.

For a guy who hadn't played in the fourth quarter in a quarter (20) of his 80 games this season, generally because the Warriors were so far ahead, and who has won only one series, Curry hardly appeared overwhelmed by the moment.

Or the final two seconds.

"He's fearless," his coach, Steve Kerr, said later. "He wants every big shot."

None of that would have meant much, ultimately, had the Warriors fallen flat in overtime, but you knew that wouldn't happen, just as you always knew that the Bulls—for which Kerr was a supporting player—wouldn't lose because Michael Jordan had rallied them back.

There was that inevitability for those teams, one that eventually extended beyond a single game, to a series, to a parade. It came to seem like an unstoppable march toward history. The Warriors aren't there yet, not even close, but Thursday eventually may be remembered as where that inevitability initiated.

Ethan Skolnick covers the NBA for Bleacher Report and is a co-host of NBA Sunday Tip, 9-11 a.m. ET on SiriusXM Bleacher Report Radio. Follow him on Twitter, @EthanJSkolnick.