Around the league: Warriors send a message with big wins over Nuggets, Pelicans

Just in case anyone was worried the Golden State Warriors were no longer the Golden State Warriors, this week should dispel that myth.

And the two-time defending champions are likely to get even better this week.

Having already blitzed the Denver Nuggets for an astonishing 51 points in the first quarter of Tuesday’s game, the Warriors hung 147 points and 24 three-pointers on New Orleans in a win Wednesday.

It gets scarier for the rest of the league now, too. Perennial all-star DeMarcus Cousins, who has been out for a year after suffering a torn Achilles tendon, is expected to play his first game with Golden State on Friday, adding another weapon to an already-dominant team.

An extended break: The Lakers’ LeBron James is close to setting a dubious personal record.

James has been ruled of the next two Lakers games — at Oklahoma City and at Houston — and that will increase the number of games he’s missed with a strained left groin suffered Christmas Day against Golden State to 13.

James has been one of the most durable stars in the league since he was drafted in 2003 and has never missed more than 13 games in any of his 16 NBA seasons. The longest stretch of consecutive games he sat out was eight due to knee and back pain in the 2014-15 season.

Going into the two-game road trip, the Lakers have gone 4-7 without James in the lineup.

Time to move on? With the NBA trade deadline looming, a lot of chatter is centred around second-year Dallas Mavericks point guard Dennis Smith Jr.

Smith hasn’t played in four games — out three with a sore back and one with an illness — which only lends credence to reports earlier this week that the trade market for the 21-yearold, chosen ninth in the 2017 draft, is heating up.

The concerns in Dallas are primarily focused on the difficult meshing between Smith and Luka Doncic, this season’s presumptive rookie of the year. The rebuilding Mavs have a budding all-star in Doncic, and turning the team over to him rather than asking him to share primary responsibilities with Smith seems to be the course of

action.

Taking it in stride: Jimmy Butler seemed entirely unimpressed with the way his new team manhandled one of his old ones in what had been billed as some sort of grudge match Tuesday night.

Butler scored 19 points as the Philadelphia 76ers blew out the Minnesota Timberwolves 149107 in the first meeting between the teams since Butler was traded for Robert Covington and Dario Saric in November.

“It was everything that I thought it would be,” Butler said, with little overt enthusiasm, after the game. “Seeing some old faces.” Information from other publications and websites was used in the compilation of this report.