December 4th - New Orleans Pelicans @ Sacramento Kings - 11-10

Durant maybe injured, Booker with 5 fouls, Lakers up 5, looks like we are playing Lakers after all.

shocker, Lakers get a massive break. Lebron called a timeout like 2 full seconds after the ball was loose. Totally absurd.

gotta beat the refs too when you play the lakers

If the Lakers win the whole thing does Uncle Tom Washington get a winners' share, too?

It will be hard against Lakers and zebras in Vegas. NBA wants some Lebron in the finals.

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Originally Posted by Mrakar

It will be hard against Lakers and zebras in Vegas. NBA wants some Lebron in the finals.

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That was my concern about playing the Lakers. Was hoping the Suns could pull it out. I think we match up better with the Suns also.

Zion definitely needs to help Jonas out on the boards for this game. Looking back on Monday’s game, Zion was extremely flat footed around the basket. There was one play in particular when the Kings got several offensive boards and finally Sabonis dunked it, and Zion stood flat footed for the entire sequence. Jonas was visibly angry after that play and I don’t think it had to do with the refs.

It's going to be tricky but luckily, both Zion and BI have a track record of playing well against the Lakers.

Zion's numbers vs LA:
27.8ppg
7.8rpg
3.8apg
62.3%TS
11.2 FTA/g

BI's numbers vs LA:
25.5ppg
5.4rpg
4.4apg
61.7%TS
5.6FTA/game

So at least one of them should be able to have a good night.

The thing about the Lakers is that outside of ref help, they generally aren't that good. They have a bottom 5 offense, because they are an awful team from 3 and are 26th in both drives and paint touches per game; they don't get to the hoop and they can't shoot. Well, Pels defense is largely predicated on preventing attempts at the rim (which we are fairly successful at) and allowing 3s - a bit like Milwaukee's defense was a few years ago.

So as long as we can shoot (which, with CJ and Trey healthy will be hopefully possible) and they don't have an outlier night from 3, we should be able to pull it off. But that's a lot of ifs. They might have an outlier shooting night. Maybe CJ is cold and can't hit the side of a barn.

On paper, we should be the favourites imo. But reality has a way of ruining things for Pelicans.

The NBA and the refs will not allow us to get to the finals over the Fakers. Only way is if we get a 30 pt lead and they can't do anything about it

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

It's going to be tricky but luckily, both Zion and BI have a track record of playing well against the Lakers.

Zion's numbers vs LA:
27.8ppg
7.8rpg
3.8apg
62.3%TS
11.2 FTA/g

BI's numbers vs LA:
25.5ppg
5.4rpg
4.4apg
61.7%TS
5.6FTA/game

So at least one of them should be able to have a good night.

The thing about the Lakers is that outside of ref help, they generally aren't that good. They have a bottom 5 offense, because they are an awful team from 3 and are 26th in both drives and paint touches per game; they don't get to the hoop and they can't shoot. Well, Pels defense is largely predicated on preventing attempts at the rim (which we are fairly successful at) and allowing 3s - a bit like Milwaukee's defense was a few years ago.

So as long as we can shoot (which, with CJ and Trey healthy will be hopefully possible) and they don't have an outlier night from 3, we should be able to pull it off. But that's a lot of ifs. They might have an outlier shooting night. Maybe CJ is cold and can't hit the side of a barn.

On paper, we should be the favourites imo. But reality has a way of ruining things for Pelicans.

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Now do AD and LBJ numbers against the Pels.

I just don't see who guards AD.
Herb will be on LBJ, but I can't see how anyone on the team will be able to contain AD.
Hopefully AD settles for midrange.

i had no idea cody zeller was such a stud in college https://vault.si.com/vault/2012/11/12/the-big-chill

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Originally Posted by AUSSIE_PELICAN

Now do AD and LBJ numbers against the Pels.

I just don't see who guards AD.
Herb will be on LBJ, but I can't see how anyone on the team will be able to contain AD.
Hopefully AD settles for midrange.

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That's not the point - my argument isn't that their stars suck, it's just that our stars show up in this matchup. The fact that theirs do too - and they do, Lebron averages 28/7/7 against us and AD averages 28/11/3 - is kind of besides the point.

There's a lot the refs can do, but you can lose a game even where you get more FTS - we should know, we took more FTs than the Jazz in the first loss against them this season and look what happened there.

Continuing to play team oriented basketball against their defense (they have a good defense) rather than getting the matchups into our heads and turning it into 1v1s will be vital, because at the end of the day the refs will be against us and that means if we want to win, we actually have to outplay them. Can't have a game where you take 20 3PAs all night or randomly refuse to pass to JV under the rim or whatever random nonsense we have going on sometimes. Gotta exploit matchups, deny them the paint and force them into jumpers, and take threes.

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Originally Posted by AUSSIE_PELICAN

Now do AD and LBJ numbers against the Pels.

I just don't see who guards AD.
Herb will be on LBJ, but I can't see how anyone on the team will be able to contain AD.
Hopefully AD settles for midrange.

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You could put Dyson on LBJ and Herb on AD.

AD don't want to bang with JV

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Originally Posted by ml wave

AD don't want to bang with JV

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That's true. On the other hand AD is too quick for Jonas.

We can win this game the same way a lot of other teams have beaten us, beat them on the three point line. We finally have the shooters to out shoot a team. Lakers are 29th in three point percentage,.

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Originally Posted by donato

You could put Dyson on LBJ and Herb on AD.

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I dont' know how many minutes Dyson and Herb are going to play together in this game. Personally I would prefer to keep more shooters out there because as I said in the post above, that should be a big advantage for us. Whenever Herb is on the floor I think he's going to guard Lebron. If I were Willie, I'd save Dyson for when they bring Austin Reaves off the bench.

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Originally Posted by Freyfamilyreuni

I dont' know how many minutes Dyson and Herb are going to play together in this game. Personally I would prefer to keep more shooters out there because as I said in the post above, that should be a big advantage for us. Whenever Herb is on the floor I think he's going to guard Lebron. If I were Willie, I'd save Dyson for when they bring Austin Reaves off the bench.

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I don't disagree. It was just a thought. It'll be interesting to see what we try to do.