February 25th - New Orleans Pelicans @ Milwaukee Bucks - 14-17

This was a good game given the circumstances and the usual bad defense. Had a chance at the end.


Now they get a day off then San Antionio. That is a game they can win.

Is it me or do Shaq and Chuck seem jealous of Zion? I know Shaq is ever since that dumb Bol Bol comment.

Now, I make way for the many chicken littles on this site. Good night.

What does it take for BI to show some emotion. Dude is on meds or something. The team doesn’t have one angry player. BI is the most emotionless player I have ever seen.

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Originally Posted by luckyman

This was a good game given the circumstances and the usual bad defense. Had a chance at the end.


Now they get a day off then San Antionio. That is a game they can win.

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I would not bet on it.

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Originally Posted by Fedupfan

What does it take for BI to show some emotion. Dude is on meds or something. The team doesn’t have one angry player. BI is the most emotionless player I have ever seen.

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Too busy trying to figure out why he passed on an open three on the last possession. He should be deep in thought rn, not angry (or at least not at anyone else)

It’s nauseating seeing Bledsoe be soo bad then go over and start laughing and joking with his old teammates. What happened to competition? Pels might be the nicest basketball team in history. They pick other teams players up, call fouls on themselves, never get technicals, & barely even raise their voice. I would pay to sign boogie and let him get a technical every other game.

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Originally Posted by 13 - 3

I would not bet on it.

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I didnt say they will, but they can do it.

I'm actually very impressed how they played Milwaukee this year. It's a bad matchup in my eyes.

San Antonio not so much.

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Originally Posted by Fedupfan

It’s nauseating seeing Bledsoe be soo bad then go over and start laughing and joking with his old teammates. What happened to competition? Pels might be the nicest basketball team in history. They pick other teams players up, call fouls on themselves, never get technicals, & barely even raise their voice. I would pay to sign boogie and let him get a technical every other game.

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It's nauseating seeing Bledsoe still on the court. I don't care if we're nice or not nice. I care if we're good.

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Originally Posted by Funcrusher

It's nauseating seeing Bledsoe still on the court. I don't care if we're nice or not nice. I care if we're good.

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I think that they just need to be more aggressive, but I’m not sure they have the personality types. You know what I mean. Like a Draymond or someone that isn’t afraid to hold teammates accountable during the game. Someone to fire them up.

I don't follow the team religiously like many of you and my basketball IQ certainly isn't as high as many here. I truly believe this team is 1 above average player away from being an upper echelon team. So many times we go head to head with good teams but fall short because: we have a poor quarter defensively, we have one of our "stars" have a poor game shooting, etc.... Zion is an above average player and an Alpha; BI is a an above average player but is a NOT an Alpha. Everyone else are average NBA players that can occasionally have a game or two of playing above average but they slip back into the average status. I'd love to keep Lonzo, Bledsoe, Hart, Redick, etc...but they are all role players. Role players are necessary, but we need another above average player. Somebody who can take over a game. He could be a 1 or a 2. I don't care! We need an alpha! Trade our picks and some of these role players and get us an Alpha!

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Originally Posted by HorneyTexan

I don't follow the team religiously like many of you and my basketball IQ certainly isn't as high as many here. I truly believe this team is 1 above average player away from being an upper echelon team. So many times we go head to head with good teams but fall short because: we have a poor quarter defensively, we have one of our "stars" have a poor game shooting, etc.... Zion is an above average player and an Alpha; BI is a an above average player but is a NOT an Alpha. Everyone else are average NBA players that can occasionally have a game or two of playing above average but they slip back into the average status. I'd love to keep Lonzo, Bledsoe, Hart, Redick, etc...but they are all role players. Role players are necessary, but we need another above average player. Somebody who can take over a game. He could be a 1 or a 2. I don't care! We need an alpha! Trade our picks and some of these role players and get us an Alpha!

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Yup an Alpha. Someone that demands ppl play better on his team.

Last comment. The problem is the defense. Straight up. You are going to have bad shooting nights. But when you score 125 and shoot 50% and still lose...this defense is nauseating.

Kawhi Leonard and Paul George just went a combined 9 - 26, and 2 - 9 from three against Memphis and lost. Now Memphis gets to stay at .500 and two games above the Pelicans.

Hopefully after this season the defense can come together for next year. But this year seems hopeless. Lower your expectations.

Aside from the familiar 'swiss cheese' defense, Donte' DiVincenzo was the reason we lost tonight. We knew Giannis and Middleton would get theirs; Lopez would do what Lopez does, and we even knew what Portis was capable of. But for DiVincenzo to efficiently drop in 24 (a career high) and nine assists is beyond inexcusable.

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Originally Posted by luckyman

Last comment. The problem is the defense. Straight up. You are going to have bad shooting nights. But this defense is nauseating.

Kawhi Leonard and Paul George just went a combined 9 - 26, and 2 - 9 from three against Memphis and lost. Now Memphis gets to stay at .500 and two games above the Pelicans.

Hopefully after this season the defense can come together for next year. But this year seems hopeless. Lower your expectations.

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I’m starting to lower mine. I know the talent is their but the chemistry and maturity may be one year away. Hoping for the best but prepared for some rough patches along the way.

Also, nice to see them go away from the hot hand in the second half. Zion only had 9 shot attempts the entire half after getting 17 shot attempts in the first. I don't even blame the players for that, as the coach you HAVE to keep feeding the hot hand. Don't understand why that is so hard for Stan to process.

When you consider we have an almost identical record to Atlanta, Boston, and Miami does it take any of the angst away? I mean its ok to have high hopes for your favourite team, but sometimes it helps to look at the bigger picture.

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Originally Posted by Funcrusher

Also, nice to see them go away from the hot hand in the second half. Zion only had 9 shot attempts the entire half after getting 17 shot attempts in the first. I don't even blame the players for that, as the coach you HAVE to keep feeding the hot hand. Don't understand why that is so hard for Stan to process.

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This is a recurring theme with them. Probably be like that until Zion demands the ball.

On a good note, we only had nine turnovers tonight.

On a bad note, one player had five.

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Originally Posted by Fedupfan

This is a recurring theme with them. Probably be like that until Zion demands the ball.

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Yeah, admittedly I think some of it is on him not being aggressive enough. Still, it's exasperating to see our best offensive player be used as essentially a decoy for long stretches at a time. And I swear to god if I see a lineup of Bled-Zion-Redick again I'm going to pull my hair out.

We really need a rangy wing defender and a version of Bledsoe that actually tries defensively and doesn’t just give up easy cuts and die on screens. I know we all love Hart but his limitations were on display tonight too.

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Originally Posted by wuggie

Zion is the most unstoppable player I've ever seen (personally) go to the rim. It's not fair

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It's unfair how he gets raped going to the bucket and no calls!

Just watched the game back.

Honest thoughts? Not disappointed in a loss, especially a close loss, against a good team. What I am disappointed by is the constituent elements of that loss.

BI shot 1/10 from 3? Come on man, that's just absurd. Some of it was just him being cold, sure, but some of the shots particularly early were not good ideas and then late in the game when we needed him to take the shots (as some other people have mentioned) he just passed them up. It was not his finest hour, even if he was okay in other respects.

Zion had another good game, a bit heavy on the turnovers this time out which happens sometimes but still is something we'd like to see reduced.

Lonzo with another of his better games: probably all three of his best games of the season have come within the last 2 weeks or something like that. He really just likes February, it seems; he did this last year as well, where February was just his month.

I think that for all that went wrong with the starters, and there was a lot, what really put the nail in the coffin on this was the bench. Firstly, SVG decided to shrink the rotation back to 8 guys: why do that, particularly on a back to back when guys are already a bit worn? Secondly, Redick and Hart combined to go 2/7 from 3 which is 29%. Redick is obviously expected to be a shooter and Hart is quite reliably mediocre from deep, but given the way Redick is playing this year and that the only other bench guy was Hernangomez, we essentially had no creation or reliable outside threats in the entire bench unit.

Obviously Milwaukee played a good game, can't take that away from them, and it's not like we got 30 balled or anything, but disappointing to lose in that way.

That's before even mentioning the defense which was, as we all know, bad.

Milwaukee's D was ******** too

They just had a bit more luck.

I'll take nice competitive losses and a higher draft pick every day of the week, unless that means 55 open threes a game

Then hulk smash

This was almost a scheduling loss. Quick 24-hour turnaround on a road back-to-back against a good, veteran team. A lot to ask.

Still, thought Pels never let go of the rope even when 3-pointers and FTs weren’t falling for them. At this point we know our limitations. We’ve improved in some areas, like turnovers, and still struggle in others, like defending the arc. It’s just a process at this point. We need to rebalance the roster at some time and mature on closing out games. Maybe that can get done for the 2nd half of the season. Maybe it will be next year.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

I think that for all that went wrong with the starters, and there was a lot, what really put the nail in the coffin on this was the bench.......Redick and Hart combined to go 2/7 from 3 which is 29%. Redick is obviously expected to be a shooter and Hart is quite reliably mediocre from deep, but given the way Redick is playing this year and that the only other bench guy was Hernangomez, we essentially had no creation or reliable outside threats in the entire bench unit.

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Yeah, I agree, the bench was really bad, huh?

-- Collectively, our game-busting bench shot 50% (10 of 20)
-- Collectively, the leaking bench had a positive +/- (there was but two positive +/- players among the starters....BI and Lonzo)
-- In fewer minutes each by the horrible bench, all three who played had at least as many defensive rebounds as the starting forwards (JJ had more)
-- The wretched bench did not commit a turnover (one starter had five)

But, like you, I believe the bench 'put the nail in the coffin' last night. Perhaps, JAXSON would have matched up better with Giannis than Josh, huh?

I tried to tell you guys Wednesday that we would lose this game. It’s a totally fine loss. We’re not a good road team and a home/road back to back with a flight from New Orleans to Milwaukee is extremely difficult.

Tired legs killed us for the most part.

One thing I think we need to start to monitor is BI’s conditioning. If you talk to anyone in the org, you know he puts in like 70 hour work weeks every week, but I’m not totally sure much of that is on conditioning (I honestly do no know. I haven’t asked)

The reason I bring this up is that BIs splits on back to backs are actually bad. Not just worse than his normal splits, but like really bad. Through 6 games he’s at 38/29/85. Its been noticeable too, in my opinion, that he doesn’t have the burst or vertical in these games. Those baseline drives that he would normally hammer, he instead tries tough layups; and the three point shot has been well documented.

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Originally Posted by pelafanatic

I tried to tell you guys Wednesday that we would lose this game. It’s a totally fine loss. We’re not a good road team and a home/road back to back with a flight from New Orleans to Milwaukee is extremely difficult.

Tired legs killed us for the most part.

One thing I think we need to start to monitor is BI’s conditioning. If you talk to anyone in the org, you know he puts in like 70 hour work weeks every week, but I’m not totally sure much of that is on conditioning (I honestly do no know. I haven’t asked)

The reason I bring this up is that BIs splits on back to backs are actually bad. Not just worse than his normal splits, but like really bad. Through 6 games he’s at 38/29/85. Its been noticeable too, in my opinion, that he doesn’t have the burst or vertical in these games. Those baseline drives that he would normally hammer, he instead tries tough layups; and the three point shot has been well documented.

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i have said this about lonzo in the 4th also......

that 8 rotation seem like our best group to go with in the playoffs with days off...

You’d think Bledsoe would want to make a trade to a veteran team happen, but he’s just laughing all the way to the bank and stealing minutes from the development of our younguns. I’ll gladly live with losses if we can offload this joker. You’d think he would at least try defensively if he’s going to be such a godawful creator on the offensive end, but no. Also, Stan being a dumbass and shrinking the rotation again on a back to back no less! The 2 game winning streak got to his head and now he thinks we are a playoff team again. Idiot. Dumby. Can we get a coach with awareness of the situation? One that realizes he is coaching young talent? Seriously what is the guy thinking? Development takes priority.

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Originally Posted by JJackisangry

You?d think Bledsoe would want to make a trade to a veteran team happen, but he?s just laughing all the way to the bank and stealing minutes from the development of our younguns. I?ll gladly live with losses if we can offload this joker. You?d think he would at least try defensively if he?s going to be such a godawful creator on the offensive end, but no. Also, Stan being a dumbass and shrinking the rotation again on a back to back no less! The 2 game winning streak got to his head and now he thinks we are a playoff team again. Idiot. Dumby. Can we get a coach with awareness of the situation? One that realizes he is coaching young talent? Seriously what is the guy thinking? Development takes priority.

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Yep, make no mistake, defense has nothing to do with it, Stan is the Pelicans' bane.

Listening to The Ringer University pod and Tajiks said in reference to the Wolves, “When you’re playing 6-7 young guys in a rotation, it makes it really difficult to win.” We should not lose sight of this when it comes to the Pels. Teams this young almost never win.

it was a good game for us to take....the bucks took advantage of our pick n roll defense...we gave up too many easy shots/floaters in the paint in the PNR defense that added up for the bucks and that was a big reason why they beat us...

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Originally Posted by 6warddude

it was a good game for us to take....the bucks took advantage of our pick n roll defense...we gave up too many easy shots/floaters in the paint in the PNR defense that added up for the bucks and that was a big reason why they beat us...

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I really think, until this team learns to play on a string, we just need to start going under every screen. Make teams beat you on pull ups and not C&S. There’s like 8 teams that can beat you consistently off the dribble

In 99 out of 100 instances, giving up an average of 32.25 points per quarter loses. We can talk about what Player X, Player Y, or Player Z (and we do incessantly) does offensively; until each in this group (including Player Z, by the way) decides to defend, we lose.

I don't think it's difficult to figure out at all.

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Originally Posted by As I See It

Yep, make no mistake, defense has nothing to do with it, Stan is the Pelicans' bane.

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Shut it multi. I said I was fine with losing as long as we were developing. Never did I say defense wasn’t an issue. You are obviously a troll now. I gave you the benefit of a doubt the other day. Mac multi

I was a bit surprised at JJ being in the game late in the 4th. Would have expected to see Hart in the game.

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Originally Posted by As I See It

In 99 out of 100 instances, giving up an average of 32.25 points per quarter loses. We can talk about what Player X, Player Y, or Player Z (and we do incessantly) does offensively; until each in this group (including Player Z, by the way) decides to defend, we lose.

I don't think it's difficult to figure out at all.

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cool

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Originally Posted by pelafanatic

cool

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At least he wasn’t dumb enough to put Houston in his name this time (a very prominent hub for VPN servers). I’ll admit that threw me off for a New York minute. Good thing he isn’t a spammer. Easy mute

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Originally Posted by JJackisangry

At least he wasn’t dumb enough to put Houston in his name this time (a very prominent hub for VPN servers). I’ll admit that threw me off for a New York minute. Good thing he isn’t a spammer. Easy mute

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LOL

There is starting a “young” team, and then there is starting a young talentless team.

The Pels are “young”, but those young players are very talented, and most of them (Zion, BI, Zo, Heart, Lewis) are your future and they need to play together more in order to grow together. There is nothing wrong with giving those guys big mins as they have shown that they have “it”. This isn’t the 04-05 Hornets where we were young and talentless, and DX was the only player worth a flip. This team is young, but being young can’t be blamed for why these guys aren’t getting more money.

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Originally Posted by UNO Gracias

There is starting a “young” team, and then there is starting a young talentless team.

The Pels are “young”, but those young players are very talented, and most of them (Zion, BI, Zo, Heart, Lewis) are your future and they need to play together more in order to grow together. There is nothing wrong with giving those guys big mins as they have shown that they have “it”. This isn’t the 04-05 Hornets where we were young and talentless, and DX was the only player worth a flip. This team is young, but being young can’t be blamed for why these guys aren’t getting more money.

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10000%. I don’t see any reason to play JJ or Bled over NAW and Kira. It’s mind boggling and JJ is actually much worse than both of them.

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Originally Posted by As I See It

LOL

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The intelligent rebuttal I expected. Sounds innocent to me

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Originally Posted by Fedupfan

10000%. I don’t see any reason to play JJ or Bled over NAW and Kira. It’s mind boggling and JJ is actually much worse than both of them.

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And I haven’t completely written off Hayes either, but I would prefer going with Steve and Billy over Hayes as they are good enough, and young enough to build with as well. Sure they aren’t in their early 20s, but they have staying power. Unless a spacing 4-5 comes along, keep playing them, and send Hayes down to the G-League to get some run. The G-League isn’t a death sentence. Countless players have gone to the G-League and returned strong/AS level.

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Originally Posted by UNO Gracias

And I haven’t completely written off Hayes either, but I would prefer going with Steve and Billy over Hayes as they are good enough, and young enough to build with as well. Sure they aren’t in their early 20s, but they have staying power. Unless a spacing 4-5 comes along, keep playing them, and send Hayes down to the G-League to get some run. The G-League isn’t a death sentence. Countless players have gone to the G-League and returned strong/AS level.

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Post of the Day!!!

Couldn't agree more!!! It may be a year late, but better late than never.