-
Game On: Raptors at Pelicans
Tonight, the shorthanded Pelicans (28-27) welcome a strong and largely healthy Raptors (38-17) team to the Smoothie King Center. Toronto will be looking to bounce back in New Orleans from a blowout loss in Houston on Saturday night, and these Raptors undoubtedly smell blood going up against a weakened Pelicans roster. In particular, All-Star PG Kyle Lowry made just […]
-
Pelicans Fill Backup PG Void with Trade for Norris Cole
The Pelicans entered the day with few expecting them to make any sort of move at the 2014-15 NBA trade deadline. Around 2 PM, Dealer Dell struck again, as he was able to turn John Salmons’ $2 million expiring contract into a serviceable backup point guard, nabbing Norris Cole from the Miami HEAT in a 3-team trade with […]
-
Short-Handed Pelicans Drop Tough One to Jazz 100-96
The Pelicans went into halftime with a 52-42 lead over the Jazz. New Orleans scored a solid 10 first half points off of turnovers against a team giving up 18 points per game in that category, 5th worst in the NBA. The Pelicans made an impressive 9 out of 15 three-pointers against a Jazz team allowing opponents […]
-
Game On: Jazz @ Pelicans
Eric Gordon: “No Davis, Holiday, or Anderson? Hold on y’all, I got this.” Tonight, an incredibly short-handed Pelicans team hosts the Utah Jazz. In addition to Jrue Holiday’s absence with his right leg injury, New Orleans will also be without Anthony Davis (right shoulder sprain) and likely without Ryan Anderson (right shoulder soreness… what is […]
-
The Quest for the 8th Seed: Western Conference Playoff Tie-Breakers
ESPN’s playoff odds formula currently expects the Pelicans, Thunder, and Suns all to finish with 44-38 records. Obviously, these projections move from day to day as the games are played, but at some point, we have to start asking ourselves: what if something like this actually happens? What are the various tie-breaking scenarios at play? Wonder no […]
-
Pelicans Halt Hawks’ Win Streak at 19 with Convincing 115-100 Victory
Motion to rename the Pelicans to the Streak Stoppers? Heading into tonight, New Orleans had halted the six game winning streaks of the Pistons and Clippers, along with the seven and sixteen game losing streaks of the Nuggets and Knicks. Tonight, the Pels had a shot to conquer the longest streak yet against a Hawks team that […]
-
Game On: HaWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWks (soon to be regular Hawks) @ Pelicans
Tonight, the Pelicans welcome the Hawks team that DIDN’T lose the Superbowl last night to the Smoothie King Center. Atlanta is currently riding a 19-game winning streak, easily best in the league this season. The Hawks have not lost since December 26th, and since then rank 3rd in offensive rating, 3rd in defensive rating, and 2nd in Net Rating […]
-
Eric Gordon Leads Short-Handed Pelicans to Impressive 108-103 Win over Clippers
The Los Angeles Clippers arrived in New Orleans riding a 6-game winning streak to go along with their 32-14 record. Heading into tonight’s game against the Pelicans, they had outscored their opponents by 7.5 points per 100 possessions this season, an average only surpassed by the 36-7 Warriors and 38-8 Hawks. Los Angeles would face a Pelicans team missing its […]
-
Game On: Clippers at Pelicans
Tonight, the Pelicans (24-22) continue their homestand against the Clippers (32-14), owners of the longest active winning streak in the Western Conference (6). According to Hollinger’s power rankings formula on ESPN.com (which takes into account factors such as strength of schedule and number of home and road games), the Clippers are the third best team in the NBA, […]
-
New Orleans Pelicans’ Mid-Season Report Card
With the New Orleans Pelicans’ season now officially halfway complete, it is a good time to take a look back and see how the team has fared relative to expectations. In this relatively high-level post, I start out by putting things in perspective with the team’s first half schedule, followed by player/coach grades accompanied by both quick notes to […]
-
Game On: Pelicans @ Knicks
In typical 2014-15 Pelicans fashion, New Orleans followed up arguably their ugliest loss of the year in Philly with one of their most impressive victories of the season last night in Toronto. 24 hours later, they’ll square off with the one Eastern Conference team which boasts a worse record than the 76ers – the New […]
-
Pelicans Outplay Pistons from Start to Finish in 105-94 Victory
With Jrue Holiday out with an injured ankle, the New Orleans Pelicans trotted out a starting lineup of Evans, Gordon, Cunningham, Davis, and Asik. This decision was an interesting one, as there is little data from this season to support the notion that it would be good defensively or at spacing the floor. Seven minutes later, Anthony Davis […]
-
Game On: Pelicans @ Pistons
Tonight, the New Orleans Pelicans continue their Eastern Conference road trip with a stop in Detroit to take on a revitalized Pistons team after the release of Josh Smith. A team that was an abysmal 5-23 before parting ways with Smith, has gone an incredible 9-1 since that point, including wins on the road in Cleveland, San Antonio, […]
-
Time for a Change in the Starting Lineup?
After the injury to Eric Gordon, Coach Monty Williams untimately settled on a Pelicans starting lineup of Jrue Holiday, Tyreke Evans, Luke Babbitt, Anthony Davis, and Omer Asik. The prevailing idea, here, was to find a way to still effectively space the floor for guys like Tyreke and Jrue to have room to get into the […]
-
Tyreke Evans and the Elusive Free Throw Line
In almost every way, Tyreke Evans is producing at the same high level this season that he reached last year. From a statistical perspective, Evans’ rebounds, assists, and steals are down ever so slightly from last season, and his blocks and turnovers are pretty much the same; hardly enough in total to cause concern over […]
-
Flat Pelicans Performance Leads to 96-84 road loss to Pacers
In the NBA, teams that make shots tend to do better than teams that miss. I know, shocking, right? That fact is true for more than just the obvious reason, though. When a team misses, the opponent gets to start its possession without the defense being able to get set. As a result, that opponent typically has […]
-
Pelicans at Pacers: Open Thread
The Pelicans finish up their quick two-game road trip in Indiana tonight with a match-up against the Pacers. Before the game, I recommend reading this nice “bittersweet” column written by Gregg Doyel of the Indy Star about Eric Gordon’s return to Indianapolis and a kindergarten teacher of his who never misses when he comes to town. Other notes to […]
-
Pelicans’ Late Game Defense Seals 101-99 Victory over Thunder
Instead of starting this recap with words, let’s start with a beautiful, beautiful picture: This chart, my friends, displays the Oklahoma City Thunder’s shots during the final 5 minutes of the 4th quarter tonight. THIS is what many were expecting when Omer Asik joined forces with Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday in the Big Easy. While the […]
-
Pelicans @ Clippers: Observations
Though this game arguably provided a better match-up for the Pelicans than the game against the Warriors two nights ago, the Clippers broke things open in the 3rd quarter and never let up, cruising to a 120-100 victory for their 9th win in the past 10 games. This game was by no means one that New […]
-
New Orleans Pelicans at Los Angeles Clippers Open Thread
The Pelicans continue their trip through California with their first of two games on back-to-back nights in Los Angeles. Up first is a match-up against Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and the Clippers. First, the bad news: after a pretty vanilla 5-4 start, the Clips have won 8 of their past 9 games (including a 6-1 road trip […]