Grüße und Vorstellung » ls as that of the NFL. A

NEW ORLEANS — They have a pulse Kemal Ishmael Jersey , and now the New Orleans Pelicans feel they have a chance.

After routing the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors 119-100 on Friday night at the Smoothie King Center to cut their Western Conference semifinal series deficit to 2-1, the Pelicans enter Game 4 on Sunday looking to get even and make it a best-of-three series.

Everything worked to perfection for the Pelicans on Friday night.

They played suffocating defense and hounded Warriors guard Stephen Curry, perhaps a bit tired in his second game back from a five-week rehab of his strained left knee, into a quiet 19-point shooting night; guard Rajon Rondo dished out a franchise-playoff-record 21 assists and pushed the pace as the Pelicans built a 25-point lead; and forward Anthony Davis scored 33 points by using an array of inside and outside moves to keep the Warriors on their heels.

New Orleans coach Alvin Gentry said Davis was so confident the Pelicans would prevail that he guaranteed the victory during a second-half timeout. Fresh in Davis’ mind had to be Game 3 in the 2015 playoffs against the Warriors when teh Pelicans blew a 20-point, fourth-quarter lead and lost in overtime.

The Pelicans, then a vastly different team, were swept in four games by Golden State. Davis said that was not happening again.

“I think about that all the time,” Davis said. “We were up 20 going into the fourth and then they come back and won it in overtime. It was tough for us. That was the message — we can’t lose this game. It’s always tough to come back from 0-3. Our mindset is to go out there, play and do what we’re supposed to do from all the game planning. Whatever results happen, happen.”

Game 4 should prove to be more than a battle of game plans. Rondo and Warriors forward Draymond Green have come face-to-face several times and verbally confronted each other, but neither has crossed the line and picked up a technical foul.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr said that might be considered a minor miracle for Green, known for his quick trigger.

“It’s one of the great stats of this year’s playoffs,” Kerr said, referring to Green’s technical-free play.

During Game 3, a camera caught Rondo appearing to extend a foot and trip Green 50 feet away from the action on the other side of the court. It seemed like a case of Rondo, a veteran point guard, trying to goad Green into retaliating.

“I’m not an idiot,” Green said. “I see what they’re trying to accomplish a mile away.”

“It’s kind of just how I am Robbie Gould Jersey ,” Rondo said, referring to his street-wise competitiveness. “I don’t know if that’s really trying to set an example. It’s just guys talking trash on the other team — it’s kind of just natural for me to respond. Not in a crazy way or anything, just let them know we’re not a pushover. We’re here to fight, and with my guys on the court, I’m going to fight as hard (as) I can for these guys — whatever it takes.”

Rondo’s aggressiveness seems to have lit a fire under the Pelicans. While Davis and guard Jrue Holiday have been the go-to performers for New Orleans, guard E’Twaun Moore, forward Nikola Mirotic and reserves Ian Clark and Solomon Hill came up big in Game 3.

The Pelicans had 36 assists, their fourth-highest total in any game this season. Rondo was the third player in NBA history — John Stockton and Magic Johnson are the others — with multiple 20-assist games.

“We need that energy,” Mirotic said of Rondo. “He was everywhere. He was on defense, offense, talking, communicating with us. He’s just huge when the playoffs start. He’s been terrific.”

The Warriors realize the Pelicans are not the 2015 team they steamrolled.

“Obviously, (Game 3) was no fun,” Warriors guard Klay Thompson said. “They did whatever they wanted. … We have to come back on Sunday and make them more uncomfortable, because they were way too comfortable.”

Colin Kaepernick’s first two ”protests” drew scant attention. He sat on the bench, out of uniform, virtually unnoticed. His third got some buzz after a reporter tweeted a picture of the 49ers bench that had nothing to do with the quarterback but caught him in the frame, sitting during the national anthem.

Meanwhile Denzel Perryman Jersey , the killing of a 12-year-old boy by police and the light it shined on the Black Lives Matter movement helped draw a reluctant LeBron James into the world of using sports as a vehicle for social change. But once he got there, James stayed disciplined both about the message he sends and the way he sends it.

Despite their vastly divergent methods, Kaepernick and James helped set a stake in the ground, declaring to athletes across all sports that their platforms could be – should be – used for more than fun and games in the 21st century.

Kaepernick’s message – ”organic” to some, ”disorganized” to others – started a movement that has essentially linked the NFL with kneeling in a dramatic string of events that will play out for a final time this season, Sunday at the Super Bowl. James has also made an imprint thanks to the power of his own brand. Whose method worked better? The answer to that question figures to guide the direction of sports protests for the foreseeable future.

”Kaepernick didn’t go into it knowing what was going to happen. He was doing what he thought was right but this was not something he expected,” said professor Danielle Coombs of Kent State, who specializes in the politics of sports. ”On the other hand, you have athletes, like LeBron James, who make sure they do it in a way that lets the message rise to the top.”

Coombs and David Casillo co-authored a paper in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues centered on James, whose precise, calculated brand of activism pressed for change, but in a way that would not negatively affect the bottom line.

Two years before Kaepernick, and two decades after the seemingly apolitical Michael Jordan once reportedly said Republicans buy shoes, too, James found himself in the middle of a firestorm in the wake of the killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice.

James said very little about the killing, which occurred only miles from his hometown of Akron Xavien Howard Jersey , Ohio. He took heat for his reluctance. But over the ensuing years, he branched out slowly and cautiously, and sometimes with others at his side. He joined Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul and Dwayne Wade at the 2016 ESPYs and gave a well-received speech calling for an end to gun violence.

The speech was a well-thought-out, well-organized message timed for maximum impact, as was Steph Curry’s impassioned defense of the stance that Kaepernick and others had taken on issues ranging from sitting during the national anthem, to the importance of showing team unity to foregoing White House visits.

”If I’m going to use my platform, I don’t want to just be noise,” Curry wrote in a Veterans Day blog on The Players’ Tribune website. ”I want to talk about real issues that are affecting real people.”

The methods Curry and James use for getting out the message were almost the exact opposite of Kaepernick’s. Turns out, Kaepernick made more headlines, but also became more vulnerable to his message getting lost or distorted due to the timing and some of his own self-inflicted sideshows .

Some may say that by not being calculating and by playing from the heart, Kaepernick sent a truer message. He also backed it up by raising $1 million for charity – much coming in $10,000 increments from celebrities and sports stars.

But was it more effective? Can it be repeated?

”One of the keys for athletes is that they pick moments in time to make sure their message resonates,” said marketing expert Joe Favorito. ”Certainly, it has become easier for people to start a process. But it’s become more difficult to follow through with it. These days, unless you have the biggest stage, you’re competing against thousands of other people. It’s not necessarily athletes. It can be anyone.”

The NFL was unprepared for the protests, though a five-page memo in 1966 written by a young black league executive to then Commissioner Pete Rozelle predicted this could happen. The memo Doug Flutie Jersey , which can be read in its entirety on theundefeated.com , warned that a team releasing a black player who’d been outspoken on civil rights issues could spark major protests.

Now even more than then, few platforms grab as many eyeballs as that of the NFL. And no league drapes itself in the American flag quite like the NFL. That’s two reasons Kaepernick’s gesture had legs.

When President Donald Trump took on the league this season, criticizing those who followed Kaepernick’s lead, the debate became multipronged, with players, and even some owners, banding together to show they would not be pushed around by the president.

Meanwhile, TV ratings remained flat. Some fans tuned out and stayed away, enraged by what they perceived as disrespect to the flag, the military and American values.

Kaepernick’s original message got mixed in with several others. Regardless, midway through the season, the NFL realized it had to do something. After multiple meetings with player representatives, the league announced it was funneling $90 million into social justice issues that are important to players. Just last week, it launched Let’s Listen Together , an initiative designed to address some of the players’ most urgent concerns.

The launch came mere days before the Super Bowl, where ”The Star-Spang Oakland Raiders Elite Jerseys