Even when things should be going well for these guys, things don’t. They came out with energy and good defense in the first half. They executed plays and got rolling to the basket for easy scores.
And they ended down 2 as the Clippers hit 9 threes to keep them right there.
Even Austin Rivers hit two awful-looking contested threes. Bleh. And then the third quarter hit. To be fair, the Clippers did tighten their defense – but let me run off some play results for you:
- Turnover
- 26-foot miss
- Missed Layup
- 22-foot miss
- 25-foot miss
- 13-foot miss
- 16-foot miss
- 9-foot make
- 11-foot miss
- 24-foot make
- Turnover
- 10-foot miss
- 25-foot miss
- turnover
That’s the result of the first 7 minutes of game time in the third – until the first subs are made. That’s one shot near the rim. That is an offense choking on its own vomit – and it was a three guard line-up with Cole, Evans and Gordon. Whenever a guard got penetration past the arc, they met the second line defender and jacked a shot. If you watch Gentry’s old teams – they penetrate and kick, and penetrate again if the shot’s not there, until they are deep in the paint. Only Jrue was willing to kick in this game if he met a defender – but the flipside of Holiday is he’s not explosive enough to get to the rim consistently, so the havoc he causes isn’t dramatic. He’s a prober, not a penetrator.
It’s hard not to just settle on the idea that this is just a mediocre team at heart, mostly because everything on this team fits badly right now. Talent to coaching, one dimensional guys, few dirty work guys who don’t take too much off the table at the same time. Ugh.
All that said, the team did punch its way back from being down big and had a chance at the end. There were some interesting things.
Observations
- The Holiday-Davis pick and roll is slowly picking up steam and chemistry. It had some pretty good results throughout the game.
- Asik played well – about as well as he was last year, and that’s been consistent for a few games. His picks can be shattering, and he even dunked tonight!
- Davis in the low post is dumb. Put him at the elbow. Put him in a pick and pop. Sure, give him a play or two there a game so he can develop it, but it shouldn’t be a bread and butter play.
- The Clippers are bad at getting turnovers, yet the Pels gave up 15 tonight. And a lot of them were bad hand-offs where a Clipper got a finger on it and the ball would squirt out of bounds off a Pelican. That kind of sloppy ball-handling drives me nuts.
- Tyreke makes a lot of mistakes – including one awful play where he was stripped by Redick, and then jogged back as Redick sprinted ahead of him to the corner, received the ball, and hit a shot. Tyreke wasn’t to the three point line yet. And though he wasn’t assigned that guy and he clearly tried to angle his run towards the paint so it looked like Redick wasn’t his guy – in transition it’s his god damn guy.
- That said Tyreke is the only perimeter player on this team not named Dante Cunningham who has even an iota of desire to get a rebound. No one else battles for crap. You want to know why this team is getting crushed on the boards over and over? One-dimensional guys.
- I was thinking Austin Rivers had a solid game. Then you look in the box score and he got 9 points on 9 shots, 1 rebound and 1 assist. It’s easy to look good against low expectations.
- I’ve seen enough of Alonzo Gee. The choice for a wing defender on this messed up team is Cunningham and Gee – and Gee usually gets it because he’s a little quicker. The problem is we are asking them to chase guys with at least B+ speed. Cunningham has C+ speed and Gee B- speed. So both those guys are eating dust – at least Cunningham does something else. Sometimes.
Next game is Saturday. Heres to a better, and Happier New Year!
7 responses to “Pelicans play three quarters of basketball”
Remember there was NO Blake Griffin tonight for the Clips. The info above is well written and the third quarter description summed up things very accurately. I was there tonight too and it absolutely was two different teams from the first half to the second half. In the first half, had we hit just a few more shots and especially Gordon missing three pointer after three pointer then we could have really put them in a hole.
From the start and well into the 3rd quarter, our ball movement disappeared. When you come out of the locker room and all you see is Tyreke hold the ball for 10-14 seconds and you have players standing around waiting for the ball to magically get to them, no cutters and practically no picks being set, the defense can collapse on Davis and they will never tire (thereby negating any thought that “youthfulness” might be a benefit).
Hey guys, news flash, if your perimeter shots aren’t going in, how about going after your misses every once in a while? And yes, Omer played tonight like he was pissed off, had some legs, a bunch of rebounds, a dunk and had fewer (though not zero) miscues.
This team is teasing us. They show us what could be and then take it away. I think there is something in the U.S. Constitution about cruel and unusual punishment isn’t there?
Our timeout usage was a disaster. Two timeouts with over a minute left where we made no subs and Doc was able to take out Pierce and Crawford. Then we don’t take our final timeout on a rebound when Gee and Cole are on the court.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Remember when we had a PG who live in the lanewith a live dribble, kicking out passes at will? Well he plays for Philly now.
Here are at least 3 of the things that I would expect a successful NBA coach
to do: 1. Have a plan in place to work with each of his players to help them all get better, 2. Inspire/motivate his players, and 3. Get his players to play together as a
cohesive unit. Lots of evidence (most importantly, the results that we see on the court during many games) suggests
that, 32 games into this 82 game season, this particular group of Pelicans
coaches has failed in all three of these areas.
HarleyG Agreed
I wrote this in the preview article as the game ended and want to repost it and explain it here:
“The Emperor Has No Clothes! Xs and Os do not equal motivation and blending talent. We lost to the Clippers without Blake Griffin and with CP3 having a horrible shooting night. The talent that won last year can’t win this year. There can only be one explanation: Coaching.”
The Clippers were on the second game of a road back-to-back. They were missing more talent due to injury than the Pelicans (and this is the time of year that injuries even out). The Clippers barely score in the 90s for the game and shoot horribly as a team, and we still can’t beat them.
There were all theses irrational “Fire Monty” people posting like crazy here when Monty didn’t deserve it. How come no one is outwardly saying it looks like the Pelicans have a coaching problem (besides me and Come on Pelican)??? If the problem isn’t coaching, how is over 0.500 talent last year losing so many games this year???
504ever Last year I wasn’t calling for Monty’s head. This year I’m not calling for Gentry’s head. Gentry has had the team he’d expected to have for 3 weeks. There are problems – but it doesn’t mean the results can’t become what Monty produced, given multiple years like Monty was.
It does mean – and this is something that’s painfully being proven out across both seasons (remember, we all had reservations about Tyreke and Gordon and Holiday’s Health last year too) – that our perimeter players are mediocre and they haven’t really developed despite being young veterans when acquired. They are now just veterans.
It kinda sucks.