Davis breathes new life into Pelicans at home

Anthony Davis had 33 points, 18 rebounds and four steals, and the Pelicans defeated the Warriors 119100 on Friday night in New Orleans to trim Golden State’s lead in the Western Conference semifinals to 2-1.

Game 4 is Sunday afternoon.

Davis was particularly dominant around the basket, scoring numerous times on dunks of the driving, putback or alley-oop variety, and the Pelicans outscored the Warriors 5436 in the paint. Jrue Holiday added 21 points for the Pelicans and Ian Clark had 18 against his former club.

Nikola Mirotic posted a double-double of 16 points and 13 rebounds and E’Twaun Moore reached double figures with 13 points.

Klay Thompson scored 26 points for the Warriors but missed 13 of 22 shots. Stephen Curry, in his second game back after a sprained knee sidelined him more than a month, missed 13 of 19 shots and finished with 19 points.

Kevin Durant scored 22 points. and Draymond Green wound up one assist shy of a triple-double.

But the Warriors, who never led by more than a single point, shot uncharacteristically poorly from outside. They missed 22 of 31 3-point attempts and finished at 38 percent (35 of 92) overall from the floor.

The Pelicans, meanwhile, made 14 of 31 3s, with Holiday, Clark, Nikola Mirotic and Solomon Hill each hitting three. They seemed to benefit from being back at home and looked to be the more comfortable team.

The Pelicans were ahead 62-56 at halftime but opened the third quarter on a 10-2 run and led by double digits the rest of the way.

The two favorites for NBA Rookie of the Year publicly tweaked each other last month, but right now Donovan Mitchell is in Ben Simmons’ corner.

The Jazz guard offered support for his 76ers counterpart after Simmons suffered through a poor performance in Game 2 against the Celtics on Thursday. He committed five turnovers and scored just one point as the 76ers lost their second straight game in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

“You look at LeBron (James) against the Mavs in the (2011) Finals — he had eight points (in Game 4),” Mitchell said. “There was one year I was watching (James) Harden play against the Warriors, and he had about 10 turnovers in a playoff game. So it happens to everybody.

“(Simmons) can’t play great every night, (but) he’s a good player.”