January 2nd - New Orleans Pelicans @ Brooklyn Nets - 17-21
Having won 2 out of 3 during that last homestand, and moving to 2-1 on this vital 14 game stretch, we're looking alright. AD is probably to play according to the injury report, and Payton looked really good in his first game back after a long hiatus. We're currently 6-0 in games that he plays in (aside from that one where he got injured like 4 minutes in). Tonight we take on the 17-21 Brooklyn Nets, who have gone 9-3 over their last 12 games, amazingly. They will not have Alan Crabbe, who is out with an injured knee, and both Hollis-Jefferson and Caris Levert are both out too. Let's take a look at them:
Offensive Rating: 12th
Defensive Rating: 22nd
Rebounds per game: 8th
Assists per game: 17th
Steals per game: 24th
Blocks per game: 28th
2pt percentage: 17th
3pt percentage: 8th
So: they are a team which is almost as bad as us on defense, but makes up for it by shooting very well from three and getting a lot of rebounds (including 5th in the league offensively). That means some things become abundantly clear: we need to defend the perimeter well, and we can't allow them to outhustle us on the boards. Unfortunately both of these things are things we've struggled with at times, but hopefully we can keep up the recent good play and make it happen.
Their first threat is D'Angelo Russell, currently averaging 18/4/6. He's not shooting very well from the field, only 41.8% but he's been having a few clutch moments for Brooklyn recently anyway. Jrue needs to focus a lot of his game on trying to take Russell out of the equation, preferably early to ruin any chance of him getting rhythm towards the end of the game.
Next up for us is Joe Harris: he's not a volume scorer for Brooklyn, neither is he the type of player who can create his own shot with regularity, but anyone who is still shooting 48% from 3 on nearly 6 attempts per game this deep into the season cannot be ignored. Our perimeter defense has looked better recently, but if we give him any chance this is the kind of guy who could replicate Doncic's 7 or 8 threes against us just the other day. We can't let that happen, so we need to focus not only on having him defended, but on defending the passing lane towards him in order to cut off his offensive gravity.
Also Jarrett Allen. He's not averaging crazy numbers or anything like that, but he's a solid and reliable player for them who pulls down around 3 offensive boards a game and is likely to have a brilliant block or two (he's stuffed Giannis at the rim twice this season alone). He sets screens well, defends around the rim well, and is a huge put-back threat, so attention will need to be paid to him around the basket.
With any luck, we should be able to get another win for our road record and pull even closer to .500 against the Brooklyn Nets, who we've beaten 8 out of the last 9 times we've played. Let's go and #DoItBig
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Originally Posted by kinglio21093
