The Pelicans were given an awesome opportunity tonight — though the Timberwolves have some pieces that anyone should be happy to build around, their active roster is missing so many of their key players and certainly lacks offensive punch.  And though points/game is certainly not the only stat that matters, you have to have players who can fill it up. Given who suited up tonight, the Timberwolves were always going to struggle with points, so the Pelicans winning was just a matter of running solid offense and not giving Minny extra possessions.

And that’s surely how it looked like it would turn out given the first few minutes of the game.  The Timberwolves turned it over on their first three or four possessions and looked so uncomfortable running the offense. And though the Pelicans leapt out to a 7-0 start, they weren’t exactly looking fantastic on offense either.  There were 8 turnovers before the game even passed the 9 minute mark in the first quarter. It was so ugly.

The Pels got it together, though, as Davis, Gordon, Pondexter, and Asik scored all of the Pelicans 25 points en route to a 25-11 lead.  The Timberwolves didn’t have a true primary ball-handler tonight, so they resorted to some aggressive cutting that, hopefully, could create some open shots and cutting lanes. It wasn’t working, though, and the product was a discombobulated offense where no one seemed to want to be both capable and willing to do the creating.

But the Pelicans suddenly forgot that the Timberwolves couldn’t shoot and let them close the gap as the end of the first half approached. There were some lucky bounces, sure, but the amount of clean looks that Minnesota got in the 2nd quarter was puzzling.

The second half certainly wasn’t perfect, as the Pelicans again had some perplexing defensive breakdowns against a weak offense.  But they came out firing in the 4th quarter and started to create enough room to put the Timberwolves away early. Most of the starters didn’t play at all in the 4th quarter and Anthony Davis/Gordon played a combined 6 minutes.

It wasn’t a perfect win by any means, and the Pelicans will have to play better than this if they are going to make a legitimate run at the playoffs.  But they got the job done and will get some rest before they fly out to Los Angeles for their game Wednesday.

Make sure to keep an eye on the Phoenix/OKC game tonight.  Phoenix has a brutal schedule down the stretch and Oklahoma City is facing some very tough opponents for the next 5 games.  Ground can/should be made up now before the Pelicans start facing their tougher opponents to close the season.

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