Timberwolves at Pelicans in the Blender 11-1-17

[Pelicanidae]

It sounds like you're making excuses for Holiday's inability to produce and live up to his salary. He's supposed to be another scoring option besides AD and Cousins. If you're only looking at the state sheet than yes Boogie had more turnovers but Boogie handled the ball more and was more aggressive (you will have more turnover opportunities when you do that). Holiday has been terrible outside of the Cavaliers game. He has been ineffective and disinterested on the offensive side of the ball. He was no where to be found in the fourth quarter and he turned the ball over and shot an air ball during clutch time. You should hold Jrue to the same standards as AD and Boogie based on his contract and how Demps sold him to this fan base.

Only if you expected more money and Dell's sales pitch to magically improve his play. The fact is, we know he's not on AD or.Cousins' level. We know it. Dell telling us he is doesn't make it so unless you're stupid enough to think Dell has a high IQ for the game, which we all know he doesn't. So I'm not judging him on his contract (which sucks yes we know but that dead horse hasn't just been beaten, it's been turned into powder), or on what Dell told us. I'm judging him on who he is and what he's done for us in the past. Which is be a somewhat streaky, late game risk who will give us something between 15-20 points on most nights. Sometimes he looks awesome and you wish he'd do it more, more often he looks mediocre. Oh well.

It's not making excuses at all. All I said was, if your problem is the turnovers, the guy with literally 4x the guy you're complaining about might be of slight concern. I already said I'm not forgiving Jrue's turnover, just saying that it might not have mattered if we had been in the better position which was easily available had there not been multiple unnecessary turnovers earlier by other people. Because context matters.

And yes, Boogie had 8 turnovers. Unless you're playing with a 60% usage rate, that's still terrible. He had an assist to turnover ratio of 0.75. That's seriously bad, and MUCH worse than Holiday's turnovers.

[sterlr]

Plenty of blame to go around, and you could alter anybody's numbers to get a desired result. But the game was tied in the final minute when Tony Allen went in for a layup, and I think KAT may have goaltended it. So any of these things and the Pels may easily win:

-- Allen hits the go ahead layup, or the refs call KAT for goaltending
-- Jrue doesn't take the other team's payoff and throw them the ball in the final seconds
-- Cousins doesn't fall asleep on the last defensive play of the half, or throw that dumb turnover at the end of the first quarter letting Crawford hit the half courter
-- Crawford misses the half courter like a normal human
-- A.D. doesn't choke that pair of FTs in the 4th, or actually blocks out against KAT on his follow dunk in the 4th (the only hoop he had all night)
-- Dante Cuninngham gives you slightly more than, oh 27min 3pts 0reb 0ast on 1-6 shooting. Seriously? I mean...SERIOUSLY??

People can call this a bad loss, and it was in that it was the Pels own damn fault. But it was right there to be won in the final minute, there was no blowout, the Wolves are another expected playoff team. There was nothing hopeless about this loss. You can change 1 play or 1 call and the Pels win. Just frustrating.

You describe the offensive scheme as the problem. Under Monty's system Jrue was clutch, AD was clutch because he stayed around the block area. Gentry comes in and ruins AD. He and DC gets theirs but doesn't make their teammates any better.

[Pelicanidae]

Plenty of blame to go around, and you could alter anybody's numbers to get a desired result. But the game was tied in the final minute when Tony Allen went in for a layup, and I think KAT may have goaltended it.

Goaltended it? KAT bodied TA, it was was like a verticals power slam.

[AD23forMVP]

This team has to rethink playing Cunningham.

[Rel11]

This team has to rethink playing Cunningham.

A couple seasons ago, I thought Dante was slept on. Turns out, he’s the one sleeping. Lol.

[Topdawg26]

Only if you expected more money and Dell's sales pitch to magically improve his play. The fact is, we know he's not on AD or.Cousins' level. We know it. Dell telling us he is doesn't make it so unless you're stupid enough to think Dell has a high IQ for the game, which we all know he doesn't. So I'm not judging him on his contract (which sucks yes we know but that dead horse hasn't just been beaten, it's been turned into powder), or on what Dell told us. I'm judging him on who he is and what he's done for us in the past. Which is be a somewhat streaky, late game risk who will give us something between 15-20 points on most nights. Sometimes he looks awesome and you wish he'd do it more, more often he looks mediocre. Oh well.

It's not making excuses at all. All I said was, if your problem is the turnovers, the guy with literally 4x the guy you're complaining about might be of slight concern. I already said I'm not forgiving Jrue's turnover, just saying that it might not have mattered if we had been in the better position which was easily available had there not been multiple unnecessary turnovers earlier by other people. Because context matters.

And yes, Boogie had 8 turnovers. Unless you're playing with a 60% usage rate, that's still terrible. He had an assist to turnover ratio of 0.75. That's seriously bad, and MUCH worse than Holiday's turnovers.

I see your point and I agree with everything you mentioned. However, it's just so frustrating to watch Holiday play. He was at least tolerable last year but it seems like he's regressed. But I guess Holiday is going be Holiday like Dell is going to Dell.

[Topdawg26]

This team has to rethink playing Cunningham.

I think they need to bench Holiday for a few games just to get him to collect himself and spark a fire.

[Pelicanidae]

A couple seasons ago, I thought Dante was slept on. Turns out, he’s the one sleeping. Lol.

I just don't understand what happened. Last year he shot basically 40% from 3, and was a plus defender. This year, he's scraping 25% from 3 and is a net 0 on defense. What happened to him?

[Bricklayer]

Goaltended it? KAT bodied TA, it was was like a verticals power slam.

it looked like he also may have blocked the shot from inside the cylinder, which is just...should not be missed by the refs. Ever. but maybe my eyes deceived me. Wolves own telecast crew thought it was though.

[Topdawg26]

I just don't understand what happened. Last year he shot basically 40% from 3, and was a plus defender. This year, he's scraping 25% from 3 and is a net 0 on defense. What happened to him?

The good news is that the team is good enough to get into the playoffs. However, I don't believe Gentry and Demps are not playoff caliber HC and GM.

[Pelicanidae]

I see your point and I agree with everything you mentioned. However, it's just so frustrating to watch Holiday play. He was at least tolerable last year but it seems like he's regressed. But I guess Holiday is going be Holiday like Dell is going to Dell.

I understand man, it's so frustrating. He had 29 Vs Cleveland (70% shooting), then 20 vs Orlando (54% shooting) and you start to think maybe he's going to be a little more consistently. Then you remember (or at least I do) the 6 weeks last year he spent averaging 22/10 and you kinda hope maybe we'll get some more of that. And then it turns out nope, just normal Jrue. It's really frustrating sometimes and you wish he'd just give you three more points here or there, but oh well. It's not worth getting genuinely upset about.

[AusPel]

I just don't understand what happened. Last year he shot basically 40% from 3, and was a plus defender. This year, he's scraping 25% from 3 and is a net 0 on defense. What happened to him?

Probably just chilled all Summer waiting for a contract which was signed like 2 days before the season started

[Pelicanidae]

Oh well. Off to sleep cause it's 4am here. Looking forward to us going on a three game winning streak and erasing the Bulls, Mavs, and Pacers.

[UNO Gracias]

Glad that I went and watched Poldark (and am now watching the WS).

Damn, we aren't close to being as good as I thought we were. Who knew that Rondo, Hill, Frank Jackson, Asik, and Ajino were the ones holding our title hopes together? Not me.

[N.O.Bronco]

Too early.

People on this board of have a quick panic button, but you have to remember Finch's system wasn't exactly singing for the Nuggets early last year either. Any system requiring a lot of reads and cuts takes time to sink in and become second nature. Until it does, you get a lot of miscommunications and turnovers.

However, hitting wide open standstill threes off of kick passes should be universally possible. Starting a game with intensity and hustle should too.

Lets also remember Gentry made it clear in several interviews that we have not over-hauled our offense. Finch has only introduced a few wrinkles here and there. Part of that seems to be his preference and the rest the lack of a longer off-season. This is still largely the house Gentry built when it comes to the offense.

Which is honestly how it went in Denver. If people remember, Finch didn't start running the offense til a couple months into the season. Once the reigns were handed over the Nuggets became the best offense in the league. But i also just don't think we have the personnel to get there.

[hornetsrebirth]

It sounds like the Pelicans players are frustrated with Jrue's passive play

http://www.nola.com/pelicans/index.s...es_get_th.html

Jrue Holiday heard it before Saturday night's win.

"We've been barking at him all year," said Pelicans center DeMarcus Cousins. "'Be aggressive!' I want him to take 20 shots a game. When he's playing like this, it takes our team to a whole nother level."

DeMarcus Cousins says the Pelicans can be a really good team.
Holiday heard it after the game as well.

"I told him when he came out: 'We are going to need this from you every night. This is how you got to start playing. You play like this, we are a tough team to beat,'" said Pelicans forward Anthony Davis.

So when Holiday went for a season-high 29 points and seven assists in the Pelicans' 123-101 win against the Cleveland Cavaliers in front of a sold-out crowd at the Smoothie King Center, he was just doing what what his teammates asked.

Jrue Holiday says it feels good to get off to a good start this season
"That's all they pretty much keep on saying is, 'Man, we need you to score.'" Holiday said. "So (I'm) focusing less on coming down and getting people into places and just trying to be aggressive and attack."

[Krysanthem]

Last minutes of this game just showed whats wrong with the officiating in the league.
Towns jumps right into Allen on the layup attempt. If this is a jumpshot Allen would be at the line.
And as expected Butler gets two freethrows on a jumpshot, although Moore didn't make much contact and Butler clearly was leaning into Moore.
To top it all Cousins obviously gets hit on the elbow on his last 3 point attempt, but gets no call.

Refs allowed more contact in the paint and they don't treat big man the same as wings or guards.
It will be an uphill battle all year.

Still Gentry deserves some criticism. Just way too many unforced errors and sloppy play for the Pels.

[DaFranchise80]

Oh well. Off to sleep cause it's 4am here. Looking forward to us going on a three game winning streak and erasing the Bulls, Mavs, and Pacers.

On paper we should beat these teams but with this coaching staff who knows?

[HK-47]

Last minutes of this game just showed whats wrong with the officiating in the league.
Towns jumps right into Allen on the layup attempt. If this is a jumpshot Allen would be at the line.
And as expected Butler gets two freethrows on a jumpshot, although Moore didn't make much contact and Butler clearly was leaning into Moore.
To top it all Cousins obviously gets hit on the elbow on his last 3 point attempt, but gets no call.

Refs allowed more contact in the paint and they don't treat big man the same as wings or guards.
It will be an uphill battle all year.

Still Gentry deserves some criticism. Just way too many unforced errors and sloppy play for the Pels.

Yeah the last few minutes was frustrating to watch due to the bad calls. It was also frustrating to see both AD and Cousins out on the perimeter on that last play where Jrue turned it over. We have two of the best post players in the league, and we have them on the perimeter in crucial moments. Not sure if Gentry should be blamed for the sloppy play, but there's that, too.

Something about the team's defense bugs me too. It can be really good at times, but too often they leave people wide open at the 3-point line. It happened against Cleveland many times, though the Cavs failed to capitalize. It happened against Orlando, and Speights made them pay. Same thing against the Wolves, though not to the extend that it did against the Magic.

[Topdawg26]

It sounds like the Pelicans players are frustrated with Jrue's passive play

http://www.nola.com/pelicans/index.s...es_get_th.html

I know we as a fan base are frustrated with Holiday's passive play. I don't understand why the media (especially the local) isn't covering this. Only Demps would pay a guy 20 mil a year to average 14 points a game and view him as a scorer in the league.

[luigi modelo]

The officiating was atrocious!! Yeah, I don't like it when the team abandons going down low, and commits bad turnovers, but I think the presence of Rondo will help a lot in righting some of these issues. We still should have won that game if the refs were decent. The last 2 minutes of reffing was awful!!

[PELICANSFAN]

it looked like he also may have blocked the shot from inside the cylinder, which is just...should not be missed by the refs. Ever. but maybe my eyes deceived me. Wolves own telecast crew thought it was though.

I was at the game and thought so as well. I wanted to see if anyone here watching on TV thought so as well. Any comments from the commentators?

[6warddude]

Jrue Holiday says it feels good to get off to a good start this season

"That's all they pretty much keep on saying is, 'Man, we need you to score.'" Holiday said. "So (I'm) focusing less on coming down and getting people into places and just trying to be aggressive and attack."
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which is why we need rondo to take the ball out of jrue hands so he can focus on scoring......