When the Warriors jumped out to go up 20 points on the New Orleans Pelicans with seven minutes left in the second quarter of their contest at Chase Center on Friday night, no one could have reasonably believed that they would run away with things. The Warriors just don’t have the talent on the floor to sustain hot starts and hold leads for long stretches of time. In many of their losses this season, they have built a lead for the first half or even the first three quarters, only to fall apart under the pressure of maintaining a late-game advantage. Sure enough, the 20-point edge went away. When the Warriors trailed by six with under three minutes remaining in the fourth, it felt like they were about to put the finishing touches on another end-of-game collapse.

But then something happened. The Warriors stepped up. They took smart shots and made them. They played pretty good defense. They turned in some of their best crunch-time work of the season and when the dust settled, they had pulled out a 106-102 win to improve to 6-24.

“It feels really good,” head coach Steve Kerr said. “More than anything I’m just relieved and happy for the players because these are great guys that are working hard every day and putting in the effort. They are just young and it’s hard to win in this league. It was really good to see us close the game down the stretch.”

For roughly the opening 17 minutes of game action, the game was going about as well as it possibly could have for the Dubs. They were moving the ball nicely. They were getting good looks from all over the court and making them. They were taking advantage of sloppy, disjointed play from New Orleans and turning Pelicans turnovers into points. But these aren’t the Warriors of the last five years, who tended to hold a big lead upon taking one. This current team can’t be guaranteed to hold any lead ever. Little by little, the offense began to stagnate. The ball stopped moving as effectively. The shot selection got worse. JJ Redick, who the Warriors had defended phenomenally well in the first half, erupted in the third quarter as he got open more often, knocked down all four of his three-point attempts and scored 13. Jrue Holiday and Brandon Ingram, who had provided the Pelicans with most of their first-half offensive firepower, continued to contribute, and Josh Hart chipped in as well. New Orleans led by three points after three quarters, and while they didn’t dominate the fourth quarter, it appeared as though they had done enough in the quarter’s first nine minutes to leave San Francisco with a comeback win.

The Warriors had other plans. D’Angelo Russell, whose poor shooting and shot selection was at least part of the reason for Golden State’s situation, knocked down several huge shots, including a game-tying three with 1:22 left in the fourth and the go-ahead jumper about 50 seconds later. Damion Lee and Draymond Green made some clutch free throws. The defense tightened up (especially on Redick), the Pelicans got no easy looks at the basket, and the Warriors won. It’s a rare sight to see them come out on the positive side of a close game, but a welcome one.

“I always say young teams find a way to lose at the end of games,” Russell said. “You hang in there and you just find a way to miss that rebound. You find a way to miss that free throw, and older teams don’t do that … I think that’s where our growth was today. We made that free throw, we made that extra rebound, we got that stop and the results were good.”

Russell deserves a lot of credit for the win. He was confident, calm and didn’t force shots late as he is sometimes prone to doing. The 20 field goal attempts and 12 three-point attempts are too many considering he scored 25 points, but he hit the biggest shots of the game and finished with a rating of +18.

“He’s built in that way to close out a game because he’s not afraid to miss,” Kerr said of Russell. “That’s kind of what it takes to be able to hit big shots. You can’t worry about missing and D-Lo is never worried about that — he just goes out and plays. He hit some big ones tonight and got it done.”

Although Russell hit the clutch field goals, the win was a team effort with a number of players making contributions. Green was his usual do-it-all self with 10 points, eight assists, four rebounds and two steals. Although his three-point shot wasn’t working, Alec Burks adjusted nicely by focusing mainly on taking twos en route to 18 points. Marquese Chriss and Willie Cauley-Stein both stepped up at times, combining for 16 points, 12 rebounds and a couple of highlight-reel plays via multiple dunks by both players and a great fourth-quarter block by Cauley-Stein. Lee quietly and efficiently scored 20 points, including four huge free throws late to help ice the game. Although he needs to be more consistent, he turned in yet another strong performance that suggests he can be a full-time NBA player very soon.

This game was far from perfect for the Warriors. It came against a Pelicans team that has now lost 14 of its last 15 contests. The Warriors fouled too much. The issues regarding a lack of offensive playmakers were exposed for long stretches of the game. The defense, though solid for most of the game, caught several breaks when good shooters missed open shots.

But it was a close game that saw the Warriors do just enough to emerge victorious. There haven’t been many of those this season, and this team will take them when they can get them.