Warriors Announce Surprise Starting Lineup vs. Rockets

The Golden State Warriors (8-3) are starting Al Horford for the first time this season against the Houston Rockets (8-3) on Wednesday at Toyota Center.

Horford joins Stephen Curry, Brandin Podziemski, Yaxel Lendeborg and Draymond Green in the starting lineup.

Horford's presence makes the Warriors lineup bigger than it usually is when Gui Santos is starting. Horford will play the 5, which moves Green to the 4 and Lendeborg to the 3.

The decision makes since considering the Rockets have four players between 6'7" and 6'11" in their starting lineup: Amen Thompson, Kevin Durant, Jabari Smith Jr. and Alperen Sengun. The Rockets' other starter is 6'0" point guard Fred VanVleet.

Horford-Green Minutes Have Been Excellent This Season

The Warriors' typical starting lineup that includes Santos has a plus-24.8 net rating, per Cleaning the Glass. That's outstanding.

But the lineups with Horford and Green have been even better.

When those two bigs are on the court together, the Warriors have a plus-35.8 net rating, which ranks in the 100th percentile.

With that said, the Green, Horford, Curry, Podz and Lendeborg lineup—aka Wendesday's starting five—has a minus-4.2 net rating.

It will be interesting to see how this new starting lineup looks after the Warriors played so well in the first quarters against the Magic and Pelicans with Santos starting.

Overall, tonight's fivesome is the eighth different Warriors starting lineup this season.

Udoka's Two-Word Plan to Slow Down Curry

Rockets coach Ime Udoka was asked how the Rockets will try to slow down Stephen Curry.

"Amen Thompson," he replied.

Thompson is one of the best defensive players in the NBA. He matched up regularly with Curry in the seven-game series in the 2025 playoffs that the Warriors won.

Curry is off to a scorching start this season. In nine games, he's averaging 30.6 points on 50.3 percent shooting and 44.7 percent from three.

The Rockets have the sixth-best defensive rating in the league.

Warriors Attempting to Win 9th Straight Game

The Warriors last won nine games in a row in the second half of the 2021-22 season. They went on to win the championship that year.

They will look to match that streak Wednesday.

This current streak has featured six consecutive home wins. Beating the Rockets in Houston would be arguably the best win they've had this season.

This is the start of challenging five-game road trip in which the Warriors play the Rockets (8-3), Spurs (9-2), Pelicans 4-7), Mavericks (7-4) and Grizzlies (7-3).

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