Moleskin Moments: New Orleans Pelicans vs. Golden State Warriors (12.4)

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Published: December 6, 2014

The New Orleans Pelicans were hoping to ride some momentum from their victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder this past Tuesday. That didn’t happen, as the Pelicans lost 112-85. Even though the Pelicans played relatively well throughout the first quarter, they still gave up too many open jumpers throughout the opening period, and once they started to fall for Golden State (and the Pelicans offense started to falter), the game was over.

This was a tale of two very different teams at two very different levels. The Pelicans play an offensive system reminiscent of last year’s Warriors, with minimal ball movement. In one year Warriors’ new coach Steve Kerr has the team zipping the ball around, and they have the best record in the NBA. The Warriors had 31 assists and 9 turnovers, while the Pelicans had 23 assists and 17 turnovers.

• Draymond Green should not be allowed to cover Anthony Davis, this should be attacked early.

• Davis takes his first shot at 8:37, and-1 on Green is the result.

• Davis gets the ball in the hi-post, catches the entire defense looking at him (and maybe Holiday too) before flinging a pass to the unsuspecting point guard, who recovered and scored two.

• The first quarter became the Anthony Davis show: Put-back dunk, block, mid-range jumper, finished the quarter with 11 points on 5/6 shooting with four rebounds.

• Reggie Miller is no Greg Popovich, but when even he comments on Davis having to get rewarded for running down the court and establishing post position only for someone to pass the ball back out to the weakside, you know you have a problem. It’s a borderline Wedding Singer “Billy Idol gets it” moment.

• Jrue Holiday gets two breakaway layups off turnovers. More stops like this can go a long way in establishing a good defensive and offensive output for the Pelicans.

• Too many mid-range jumpers to start the second quarter, delayed fastbreak after delayed fastbreak and the Pelicans 8 point lead disintegrates.

• Cunningham starts his Pelicans career with one of the ugliest passes I’ve seen. He has definitely practiced with this team.

• Pelicans start the second quarter 1/8 with three turnovers. You have to think that Coach Monty Williams has to be contemplating staggering minutes with this team, they just aren’t deep enough, with enough play makers, to have Holiday/Evans/Davis all out at the same time.

• 2nd quarter fastbreak points: GSW – 17, NO – 0.

• GSW ends the half on a 31-10 run.

• Davis has a double-double after one half, the first time he’s done that this year.

• This team doesn’t do enough to make the game easy for them. Everything is made from scratch. Watching the Warriors whip the ball around the court, you can see how they all just set each other up.

• The Pelicans had some pushes, but never made that run after the middle of the third.

• Some end of game stats. Davis had 30 points on 14-19 shooting, 15 rebounds, two steals and three blocks. The rest of the Pelicans team scored 55 points on 23-70 shooting.

• Or to compound it: Ryan Anderson, Tyreke Evans, and Holiday combined to shoot 11-39 from the field (this team needs to make the game easier for each other, or this could be a long season.)

• Evans was really bad today. He may be a barometer of the team’s successes and failures.

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