Tonight at Staples Center, the 8-10 New Orleans Pelicans take on the 5-15 Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers aren’t an empty 5-15 . . . that’s a representative record. They’d had 4 players start all 20 games (Kobe Bryant, Jeremy Lin, Wesley Johnson, Jordan Hill) with Carlos Boozer missing just a single start. The returned-to-action walking, talking legend Kobe Bryant is leading the team at over 35 minutes per game to boot, and leads surpasses Anthony Davis in scoring (per minute, per possession, and per game). Still, the team posts a worse offense than the Pelicans (108.1 v 107.2) and the worst defense in the NBA (108.9 v 115.4).
Of course, this doesn’t matter tonight.
The Lakers were shellacked Friday by the Celtics. Afterwards, head coach Byron Scott, who led the New Orleans Hornets for years, promised changes. Those changes will start tonight, with Ronnie Price replacing Lin and Ed Davis replacing Boozer. The changes were made, ostensibly, to improve the team’s defense.
The Pelicans have lost 2 straight to superior teams on their current west coast trip (Warriors, Clippers), and this is the second night of a back-to-back for the Pelicans, though the easiest one (on paper) in terms of travel (short flight from Staples to Staples). In each of the prior losses, the Pelicans led after a meaningful number of minutes (into the second against the Warriors, into the third against the Clippers), but the team just could not hold off the teams’ outside shooting (27 of 54 combined on three-point shots). While these teams are the top 2 teams in the NBA in 3P%, the Lakers shoot below average from 3 . . . and 2 . . . and 1.
The Lakers take care of the ball and rebound well offensively. In limited sample size, Boozer and Lin are also worse in their respective areas than their replacements in the starting lineup.
With a rough December schedule, the team needs to win their games that winnable to have a chance to pull out of a nosedive in their softer January schedule.
We know the story with the Pelicans: Davis, guards have to guard, Evans can’t go 2 of 15 or like.
Fellas, you are frustrated and you can take it out on the Lakers. Do so.
You can catch the game locally on Fox Sports New Orleans or 105.3 FM. The game starts at 8:30 CT (UTC -6).
Questions
- How well will the Pelicans’ guards guard Kobe Bryant?
- How well can Tyreke do against with the closest thing to no defense he’ll in December? (Who knows what rabbits Philly can pull from their collective hat?)
- Babbitt?!?!
Links
New Orleans Pelicans Statistics
New Orleans Watch
As noted above, Coach Scott spent some time in New Orleans.
9 responses to “New Orleans Pelicans at Los Angeles Lakers: Open Thread”
This is a must win for Monty and the Pels. He needs to figure out how to make this roster work, or we need to consider a change (cough cough George Karl cough cough).
I’m going to make a prediction… 120-98 Pelicans… Holiday with 20-10. Asik 10-10 and AD for 30-15-5-2. I think Tyreke will play better as a SF in this one than SG. Ryno to shoot 50% from 3pt. Fingers crossed.
SydSider Someone is fired up!
Maybe Monty will catch wind of the Lakers changes and do some of his own…by that I’d like to see Meckel come in as backup PG to distribute to the shooters. Funny how different the offense looks when the ball is moving. Guys will shoot a little better in the same gym two nights in a row after they shake off the confusion from the change in color scheme…Given that…will we see red on the road tonight?
Kobe will either get his 28-30 or go off…I’m hoping for the former
Tyreke liked this game last time at home and will be on the upswing again…seems like he is as up and down as the Saints so this means it good game night
Babbitt seems to be growing in confidence on his shot…not sure if he will get enough to hit double figures, but he’s been good for around 2 treys per game
C’mon Pels!!!
Key to the game? Luke Babbitt’s offense?
Meckel with 4 asst is first 3 min
Pelican Poster yup
Really like Cunningham and Ajinca tonight, and Mekel early in the night. Cunningham’s defense was what really stood out for me along with his dunk. I was sold. Then he whips out the outside shot and hits two back to back. That’s even better.
This is starting to look like a promising group of players (in this order): Davis, Holiday, Asik (looking better as we move away from the back spams) , Anderson, Evans, Gordon (when healthy), Babbitt, Cunningham, Ajinca, Mekel, and Rivers. (Withey and Jimmer are just human victory cigars at this point.)
At the very least, we seem to be winning games we are supposed to win, and taking a couple we aren’t. If that trend continues, I think the easier part of our schedule will help us to climb over .500, gain confidence, and take a few more tough ones.
Another interesting un-measurable stat is how shooters seem to make more shots when the ball is given to them when they need it and where they need it to get the shot up. Often times its an open look. Watching Paul last night, this was plainly obvious as Barnes was raining three’s. Of course we saw this when he was here, with West, Peja, and Chandler as the recipients. I saw this with Meckel tonight when he came in as our guys immediately starting knocking out shots on his passes. It seems their ability to distribute well helps them to generate assists because the shooters are more comfortable getting the ball from them and likely to make it. I think this is why Rivers struggles to generate assists. Many times he has to go one-on-one, or get the ball to someone in a spot where they have to do the same. Hope this makes sense?