That was painful. I mean every part of the game was painful, but watching Anthony Davis walk off the court with a shoulder sprain was the worst. Frankly, the one thing I was looking forward to for the rest of this season was watching Davis and the other young guys develop. Of course, Davis may be back this season, but when he isn’t on the floor, this team is tough to watch. Once Davis left, this game was pretty much over. Nothing looked the same.
Here are my notes and observations from the game.
Nick’s Notes
1) I spent a lot of time in my game preview discussing the importance of pick and roll defense. Well, we were pretty horrible at defending the pick and roll. In all fairness, our defense wasn’t really good anywhere.
2) Tonight, a professional basketball team shot 42.1% from the free throw line (8-19). There is no excuse or explanation for that. For comparison, the Mavericks shot 94.1% (16-17).
3) We turned the ball over 19 times tonight. Gordon led the team with 5. There were so many ugly passes tonight. At one point, Hubie Brown had to scream, “Look out!” because he was worried an outlet pass was heading towards press row. Yes, this is real life. This is not an NBA remake of Major League.
4) Gordon’s play and value was a point of discussion tonight. In my opinion, tonight was a good example of him at his best. He scored 19 points on 11 shots, but it never felt like he took the game over. He can be a solid and efficient scorer, but I don’t think he can be a 20+ a night guy. That is just my opinion.
5) Brian Roberts frustrated me on defense again tonight, but he shot well.
6) Stiemsma had 2 rebounds and recorded no other statistic in 15 minutes. I was happy he didn’t commit a turnover or foul.
7) Ajinca played fine on offense again tonight, but his defense wasn’t great.
8) If Rivers could shoot free throws with the same confidence as 3-point shots, he’d raise his game to another level. Still, he shot the long ball well tonight. He also seemed to be a little frustrated at various points of the game. I actually liked that. I like a guy who hates to lose.
9) Darius Miller played tonight. He went 3 for 3 in garbage time. I didn’t really see anything I loved or hated. I’d like to see him get a few more minutes, but he probably isn’t our SF of the future.
10) Obviously, there will be a lot of talk about the injuries in the next few days. I don’t know what to say other than this has to be the unluckiest team in the NBA. I’m not a medical professional, but I don’t see how these injuries could be systematic. They seem like just freak unexplainable things.
Well, that is everything for tonight. There are 25 games left in the season. After tonight, tanking is going to be a major topic of conversation. No matter where you stand on that, be prepared.
The Pelicans play again this Friday in Phoenix. The game will be on ESPN at 9:30.
29 responses to “Anthony Davis is Injured in Blowout Loss to Mavericks”
The tank is all gassed up & ready to go!! I wish Ant Davis a speedy recovery.
With the East playing so poorly (tanking) is there any way we could get close to a top 5 pick this year. I think we’re currently at 10th or 11th, which goes to Philly. Guess it doesn’t matter if we can, or can’t, we’re going to lose games anyways.
That’s one thing I can say Austin has over almost everyone else on our team: he’s pissed at all of this bad play. We don’t have ANY emotion on our team. NONE!
you have got to be KIDDING me with these injuries.
right now it all depends on the pingpong balls….i hope we get lucky again and snatch a top 5 pick…..tank mode is coming…..
This writer said that tanking was not an option in the preview. I was surprised to hear it.
We are currently 11th from the bottom, but a mere 4.5 games from reaching the top 5 and regaining the protected pick…with all these guys out and 25 games left to play I can’t see how we don’t get there. Don’t think anyone will go into full tank mode for another few weeks so NOW IS THE TIME to make up ground on the cellar dwellers! (I think I threw up a little while typing this…) Captain Monty is just going to have to ride down with the ship and it will be refurbished next year. Looks like we have some good SF prospects in the first 10 picks of the draft this coming year.
Season is over time to start Austin Rivers, Darius Miller, and Jeff Whitey and see what they can do in extended minutes.
A record that is 5th place from the bottom does not come close to guaranteeing a top 5 pick. So, we can tank but Philly will have a large chance of being the beneficiary. We need to ignore the score and focus on the process of developing and evaluating players that may be interesting for out future. Next next next next next man up!
So, it looks like Gordon will battle Aminu for the Iron Man award for least injuries among our starters. A surprising and disheartening thought….
The meek do not inherit the basketball court. Davis is taking too many cheap shots. The Pelicans need to send a clear message that this will not be tolerated. We need a coach with a touch of Joe Stalin in him. Also we need two bigs with the humor of the grim reaper. They don’t have to good just sociopathic. Who knows we may be able to force the officials to take control of the game for a change.
Team would have to go 4-21 the rest of the way to finish with a bottom 5 record. Stop talking about 4 games out or 4.5, whatever. That means nothing when you are talking about multiple horrible teams. You know how long it takes terrible teams to win 4 games.
The magic number is 27. Win more than that and you have no chance at a bottom 5 record. The Pels have 23 wins currently. Going 4-21 would be a .160 winning percentage from here on out. That would be the third worst winning % of all time if extended across a season. Do people really think the Pels are playing like the third worst team of All-time?
Bottom 5 record is not happening. The sooner people realize this, the sooner we can talk about realy things; not mythical tanks.
My god this team suck no leadership within players and coaches.Time to play all season with our heads down.
I just want this season to end and Monty fired because im tired of seeing his Oddjob hitman suits from the James Bond movies and the other suits from the Herb Tarlek collection.
Better make it Chuck Daly,Phil Jackson,Vince Lombardi or even Sean Payton for the matter if you want motivation.
Davis is soft i mean i can take that hit.
Monty Williams needs to teach his players to make free throws, not to throw the ball out of bounds and to the opposing team, and to shoot the ball before the 24 second clock expires.
With the upcoming schedule , we’ll be on automatic tank control. ..we need a good veteran presence next year….
AngryCookies I don’t think starting them all is a good idea (except Rivers), but I think they need to get more playing time, which they did last night, so that’s a good thing! I just don’t see how we can be keeping those guys warming the bench when we have to know that Stiemsma and Aminu won’t be here past April.
Come On Pelican
And not get injured. That’s on Monty, too.
No 19 year old rookie is going to help this team so stop with all that tanking business.
The guys are still playing hard.
There will be no tank and probably no draft pick because of it.
Tough times lead to good times.
Next season.
xman20002000 Caffeinedisaster My earlier sentiment exactly…we won’t have to tank…it will happen on its own…these last post all star losses to me exude a forboding sense of negativity beginning to take hold in the guys and you almost can’t blame them given how many are gone
BigBLDavis Michael McNamara Disagree. If we were a team like Dallas with a bunch of players in their 30’s, it is a terrible place to me. Least experienced team in the league? Those teams improve internally and via reasonable injury luck.
Pelsdachamps Clearly you’ve never played sports before and don’t understand that some of the worst injuries occur with no contact at all, let alone minimal contact
I play contact sports i let a stinger stop me.
xman20002000 Michael McNamara BigBLDavis You always feel some kinda way when your comment gets deleted! Thanks for the response guys, nice to know someone is reading them. My “Limbo” comment was in reference to this season, even though I mentioned an entire era. Of course we have a young squad that will grow! On a side note, need to have a convo, private or public, about my comment deletion…having serious concern after reading other comments that haven’t been deleted yet!
xman20002000 Michael McNamara FYI…I’m still waiting for other users to get their comments deleted……this one guy has an anti-Monty avatar and he still isn’t deleted…LOL so I know my comments had nothing to do with “lineups” comment. Come on, throw me a bone here I need to know what you guys are thinking.
BigBLDavis xman20002000 Michael McNamara We have no record of any comment of yours in our deleted files. You might have written something, but we did not delete it. We don’t delete comments that criticism the team, coaches, etc.
Only ones that attack other users or add nothing to the convo. I have no idea what you posted, but we didn’t delete it, so feel free to post again.
Michael McNamara BigBLDavis xman20002000 Thanks Mac…I’ll take that and roll with it! Thought I did something wrong! It says “This comment has been deleted” above your response. Must be something on my end I guess….