November 28th - New Orleans Pelicans VS Washington Wizards - 10-11
After losing to the Wizards on the road, we see them again tonight at home in New Orleans, as we look to right the ship after an uncomfortable losing streak. With Bradley Beal coming out asking for a trade, it appears that the Wizards are officially breaking down, and hopefully we can take advantage of that crumbling team unity to get us a much needed win.
Hasn't been long since we played them, so I'll just give a quick rundown of their team qualities:
Offensive Rating: 12th
Defensive Rating: 29th
Assists Per Game: 18th
Rebounds Per Game: 26th
Steals Per Game: 10th
Blocks Per Game: 2nd
3pt %: 28th
2pt %: 5th
Not only are they a poor rebounding team in general, but Dwight Howard is still out right now, leaving their leading rebounder as Otto Porter, who is averaging 5.2 boards per game. They have quality scoring depth, with 6 players averaging double figures, but they aren't a great shooting team. Of course, we aren't a great team at defending the long ball, so we won't have the ability to just exploit their poor ability behind the arc with late closeouts.
What do we need out of tonight to win? Simple: as with every game we've lost recently, there are two things we need to really work on. One is consistent defense, and one is turnovers. We've got a tendency right now to have 8 turnovers in one quarter, and 1 turnover the next. That's unsustainable, and leads to the jerky, stop-and-start quality our offense has had recently. The defense has a similar problem: we'll play great for three possessions, force shotclock violations and close the gap in the opponent's lead, before falling asleep at the wheel for five straight possessions and losing it again. We don't need to do anything new, we just need to do what we've been doing with consistency. A struggling Wizard's team should be a good chance for us to get back on track.
#DoItBig
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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae
