Things looked rough for the Golden State Warriors after fifteen minutes on Tuesday evening. Playing on TNT, the Warriors were missing the injured Steph Curry and Andrew Wiggins, but fell behind the New Orleans Pelicans by 17 points after one quarter. But then the Warriors stepped up defense and Reggie Miller turned on Buddy Hield to inspire Golden State to a 124-106 win.

Hield was the star with 28 points and seven three-pointers, including 19 points in the second quarter. He didn’t miss a shot after a halftime conversation with Miller, who awkwardly declined to share what he told the Warriors’ new sharpshooter. All we know is that he was a different player after the break, sinking all six of his triples. For the season, he is now 20-for-36 from deep.

The Warriors got 19 points and five assists from their temporary starting point guard, Brandin Podziemski, who exemplified Golden State’s crafty defense Tuesday night with numerous deflections, two blocks and a steal. Demoted starter Jonathan Kuminga came alive with 17 points and three assists, one of which was a very nice feed to Trayce Jackson-Davis for a dunk.

According to this site’s charter, whenever we mention “Kuminga” and “dunk” in the same sentence, we are contractually obligated to include footage of Kuminga dunking. So here’s a really nice reverse dunk from JK on a breakaway.

On the advice of my lawyer, here’s a different angle.

But the truly surprising game came from Lindy Waters III, who did it all for the Warriors in 31 minutes, scoring 21 points with a plus/minus of +26. Not only did Waters score, but he also grabbed nine rebounds, had four assists, had a block and a steal and made an improbable defensive rebound while driving back after a missed turn three.

Draymond Green had the unenviable assignment of slowing down Zion Williamson, who had 31 points for the Pelicans and essentially can’t be stopped by anyone one-on-one. But Green made his night difficult by drawing two charges on the All-Star forward, one of which changed from a blocking call after a Kerr challenge. Yes, Draymond convinced his coach to challenge a bad call and he was right! That accounted for two of Williamson’s seven turnovers, three of which came on foul charges.

Green also had seven assists and hit a huge three to stop a 6-0 Pelicans run and get the Warriors within four points at the half.

That led to a 40-point third quarter, then a 19-point fourth quarter from Hield, and finally to Kerr clearing his bench with 2:43 left, a true Strength In Numbers moment that also put Pat Spencer on the board and Moses Moody to pad his three-point shooting numbers with two late triples.

Steve Kerr moved Brandin Podziemski and Moses Moody to the starting lineup and moved Jonathan Kuminga to the bench. The first result? Confusion.

The Pelicans absolutely outplayed the Warriors in the first quarter, which they won 31-14. New Orleans ended the quarter on a 13-0 run. The duo of Williamson and Brandon Ingram looked spectacular, finishing with a total of 61 points on 24-for-36 shooting for the game. But crucially only five combined assists as the Warriors finished with a huge 34-22 lead in dimes.

Jose Alvarado added four assists and a steal for the Pels in a powerful rebuke of Tony Hinchcliffe.

When you see a team give up a huge run to end a nightmare quarter, the Warriors were usually constantly turning the ball over or giving up fast breaks. Instead, the Warriors simply couldn’t get a shot off, while also struggling to communicate on defense in rarely used player combinations.

Some of this was Pelicans defense, like when Yves Missi blocked Jonathan Kuminga at the rim. But mostly it was the bane of all popular three-point shooting teams: regression to the mean. Hield made more than 50% of his threes entering the game, but all of his shots rang off the rim before halftime. Overall, the team shot 6-for-23 in the first half, hitting six of seven to start the third quarter.

The problem was clearly Hield not coming off the bench. His budding Sixth Man of the Year campaign cannot survive if he is in the starting lineup. Kerr corrected the mistake at halftime and started Lindy Waters III for the second half. Hield responded in the second half, making five straight shots in the third and fourth quarters, including four from behind the arc.

The Warriors scored 40 in the third, but the quarter break didn’t cool Hield, who held on 13 in the 4th quarter as the Dubs tried to run away with the game. He made all six of his three-point attempts after the break and scored 19 points in the fourth.

He also seemed very animated towards the announcer’s table, where Reggie Miller was sitting with Kevin Harlan. Near the end of the game, Miller admitted that he had “a conversation” with Hield at halftime, which tells me that Joe Lacob must be doing everything he can to get Miller to talk trash about Hield at crucial moments.

Golden State also got nine hard rebounds from Kevon Looney and a whopping five steals from Kyle Anderson, who was as bad at shooting as he was good at forcing turnovers. “Slow Mo” shot 0-for-9 from the field and 0-for-6 from behind the arc (one was a desperation effort) and airballed a corner three. But he’s so good at everything else that he still finished +9 in his 20 minutes.

These teams will do this again on Wednesday night, where the Warriors may get lucky with a minutes restriction on Williamson. Maybe they don’t need luck with their twin flamethrowers of Hield and Waters.