The New Orleans Pelicans take on the Houston Rockets tonight at 7 pm CT (UTC -5) at the Toyota Center situated above the underground part of downtown Houston. The game is on 99.5 FM locally, on the Pelicans radio network regionally, but Houston has local TV coverage.

This is not faithfully accurate . . . I’ll start over.

Some of the New Orleans Pelicans take on more of the Houston Rockets tonight at 7 pm CT (UTC -5) at the Toyota Center situated above underground downtown Houston. The game is on 99.5 FM locally, on the Pelicans radio network regionally, but Houston has local TV coverage.

The Rockets are without Brewer, Capela, Howard, Jones, and Motiejunas. They are projected to start Harden, Smith, Lawson, Harrell, and the familiar Trevor Ariza.

The Pelicans are without . . . get ready . . . Pondexter, Ajinca, Asik, Babbitt, Davis, Evans, Cole, Sleepy, Happy, Grumpy, Dopey, Sneezy, Bashful, and Doc . . . plus Gordon is questionable. They are projected to start the minutes-limited Holiday, the questionable Gordon, the reliable Cunningham, the resurgent Anderson, and the Kendrick Perkins. For those that do not know, Davis’ absence is reportedly just for rest, and there is no reason at this time to doubt that.

This game is in no way representative of Pelicans’ basketball, at least in any meaningful sense, with respect to level of play. This is more of a collection of plays and a body of play calls of questionable relevance to predicting future performance.

What I do want to see is how Holiday, Gordon guard Harden, if that ever happens. Holiday’s play is, of course, of interest generally, as well.

After a slow start to the preseason, Anderson is playing well. His rebounding has taken a back seat to scoring, but this is to be expected. The good news is that he does something when the ball is not falling. I’m good with either from Anderson, but maybe this is a game where we get both since Davis is resting and Asik is still out.

Other than this, we may get to see a real trial for some of the Pelicans’ bubble non-guaranteed players. Seeing who gets minutes in which situations could be telling, but more so should be how the bubble guys play against regular rotation Rockets. That stuff may go right into the decision-making folder. These games can make a (short?) career for someone, and that’s always nice to see.

Enjoy the collection of plays.