Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all stuffed yourself with turkey and some pumpkin pie. Personally since I’m Australian we don’t do thanksgiving for the obvious reasons, but I’m always down for stuffing my face with food and spending time with the family.

On to the game, the Pelicans travel to Atlanta to take on the Hawks. Recently Mark Cuban said that the Pelicans (among other teams) should move to the Eastern conference. We’d play the Hawks a lot more if that was the case…

So, the deep heated rivalry between New Orleans and Atlanta extends to basketball tonight. The Hawks are off to a pretty decent start at 7-6. Paul Millsap is playing well (free-agent to be) and so is Jeff Teague (both in my fantasy team 😀 )

Keys to the game:

• Get Anthony Davis the ball. Monty Williams recently said he wants Davis to get 20 shots a night. That’s more like it! The problem is that teams are trying their best to take away Davis. Every pick and roll the big-man (even the guard sometimes) virtually ignores the ball-handler and sticks to Davis like glue. Think Ryan Anderson pick and pops. New Orleans needs to think of creative ways to get Davis the ball, particularly down the stretch.
• Don’t foul the Hawks. Atlanta ranks 8th in the league shooting from the FT line. Luckily they rank 26th in the league in getting to the line, so there’s that. But the Hawks can punish you there, so don’t do it!
• Get to the FT line. Conversely Atlanta gives up the 5th most FT attempts in the league. I would expect New Orleans to get to the line quite a bit tonight, so make sure you convert (look at that juxtaposition!)
• Play better pick and roll defense. For the life of me I can’t understand what New Orleans is trying to do on defense sometimes. Rarely does the big man hedge and try to contain the ball handler. Jrue Holiday does a great job of being feisty and staying on his man. But what happens is the opposition resets the pick like 20 times and eventually he get stuck behind. Then the inevitable happens with dribble penetration. Wide open lane/shooters. Points. They need to figure out how to defend the most common NBA play

Don’t forget to check out a couple of articles:

• “Fan-Post” by Eric — he has some pretty awesome suggestions on what to fix. We love you guys, so if you have any suggestions on how to get the Pels back into the top 8 please comment below
• Jake Madison — The Pelicans slow but efficient offense — Monty Williams has never coached a team that pushes the ball up the court. Jake investigates how well New Orleans really is on offense.

Please follow us on Twitter during the game and join the conversation!

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