January 28th - New Orleans Pelicans vs Washington Wizards - 26-23

Saturday night in SKC ✨

🕖: 7:00pm CT
📺: Bally Sports NO
📻: @995WRNO#Pelicans | @SmoothieKing pic.twitter.com/LsWsONhR5F

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) January 28, 2023

Okay, we're at home, we've lost 6 in a row, we're playing the 22-26 Wizards (who have won 4 straight, of course we get them on a streak) and Ingram has had a game back to hopefully knock some rust off.

Can we please get a win now?

BI should only shoot that baseline fadeaway. That was the one shot he used the other night that was falling. Or at least go to it early to see if he can get in a rhythm. I wonder if he will get in the 30 minute range tonight? Had 26 last game...

I'm tired of JV camping at the 3 point line

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Originally Posted by stevemadden504

I'm tired of JV camping at the 3 point line

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Well you won't have to worry about that for the rest of the game. God this is a frustrating game so far.

This team needs a modern day Rajon Rondo, Tony Parker, Goran Dragic, Mike Conley, or Ricky Rubio in the worst way. Having someone to orchestrate would make a world of difference. We wouldn't go through so many doldrums.

A bottom three team in the league for the last three weeks plus. Kind of weird that Willie has been this bad and not many people are blaming him. A lot of stuff that this team does is coaching. Jonas has picked up a foul on that same goofy ****** elbow 100 times this year. But, here we are. They just don’t make adjustments. We are watching the same dry effort and sad body language for a month now. They are losing because they are not trying as hard as they can. They are coasting those games.

I get a distinct impression that BI and Kuzma don’t like each other

Why is Trey even on the game?

and

Willie, please play Kira!!

BI is obviously just getting his bearings back and having him on the team makes us a good team just like last year but having Zion elevates us to that next level. Having both would make us scary.

Devonte is a momentum killer.

This team is in free fall

Next two games

Denver

Bucks

So it only gets tougher

Remember the good old days when we passed each other the ball on offense and guys would cut to the basket and play for each other?

This is on Coaching….No change in the rotations. Not even letting Kira get PT. My only thing is that he is trying to see who the weak links are to trade.

It’s been on coaching. This guy has been bad for two years straight and people think he’s good cause he got the Pels to a playin game that shouldn’t even exist, but the league needs more money, so they added it. I have been bamboozled to but this guy is a complete clown. He let Graham in a game down 16. No other coach in the league would do that.

I'd rather see Temple starting over 3M3 right now. He may not have Trey's talent, but, at least, he knows how to play the game.

Why they don't try Kira is mind boggling.

Herb is First Team All Defense and Last Team All Offense.

Every teams' fans over-value their talent; we are no exception.

is jax hurt?..or did we save him for next game because the small ball after jonas got kicked out was part of our downfall in this game..

I now fear that Griff would do something drastic to save the season. Don't overpay!

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Originally Posted by PaKwAn

I now fear that Griff would do something drastic to save the season. Don't overpay!

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Van fleet trade incoming

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Originally Posted by Speakthetruth

Van fleet trade incoming

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Goodness no!!! I've had my fill of 5'11'' guards!! Too much of one thing is not a good idea.

BI is back, making me remember that all he does is shoot. Not a plus on defense, lazy passing, zero energy.

The ejection of Jonas was refdickyoulost. Gibson fouled Jonas then stuck his head under Jonas' armpit and Jonas lowered his elbow without any wind-up or intent. Not even a flagrant 1. Then they fail to review later shots to the face on Herb and Billy, not to mention the 4 or 5 in fairly recent games to Jose's face. No way Gafford dominates Jonas the way he did our smaller "bigs". Another way to lose, brought to you by the best officiated league ever.

Looks like the Pels will reverse last year, going from first place to out of the playoffs, instead of last place to the play-in. Sad to see such a promising season slide down the drain. Zion will take several weeks to lose the recent weight gain and re-establish his form if he comes back at all. By that time it will probably be too late....

People calling Willie a "complete clown" are literally clueless.

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Originally Posted by As I See It

Goodness no!!! I've had my fill of 5'11'' guards!! Too much of one thing is not a good idea.

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Jose fred graham cj and larry lineup is a must watch tv

7 game losing streak, home/away it doesn't matter. what has happened to this team?

By the end of January we'll either be at the 9-12 spot in the west. And the February schedule isn't giving us a break either.

This is getting out off cotrol ... Typical #Pelslife season

Hmmmm seems like Zion's health is the heart of the team.

It just wavered off after a few games without him

I'm not sure anyone is to 'blame' the team just kinda lost its fight and confidence. Willie has to not overreact and keep trusting the guys to figure it out. They should snap out of it soon.

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Originally Posted by neworleanshoo

People calling Willie a "complete clown" are literally clueless.

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People who don’t realize Willie has sucked is clueless. I’d challenge my basketball coaching ability and knowledge Vs yours any day of the week.

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Originally Posted by Impose

Hmmmm seems like Zion's health is the heart of the team.

It just wavered off after a few games without him

I'm not sure anyone is to 'blame' the team just kinda lost its fight and confidence. Willie has to not overreact and keep trusting the guys to figure it out. They should snap out of it soon.

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How about Willie figuring it out. He’s the idiot playing Graham down 16 points.

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Originally Posted by Impose

Hmmmm seems like Zion's health is the heart of the team.

It just wavered off after a few games without him

I'm not sure anyone is to 'blame' the team just kinda lost its fight and confidence. Willie has to not overreact and keep trusting the guys to figure it out. They should snap out of it soon.

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That's the impact of a top 15 player.

With him, we go on winstreaks without BI and CJ.

Without him, we get steamrolled by anyone and everyone.

MVP level impact is hard to replace and it's what he was giving us.

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Originally Posted by Fedupfan

People who don’t realize Willie has sucked is clueless. I’d challenge my basketball coaching ability and knowledge Vs yours any day of the week.

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You literally disappear anytime we're winning. You have nothing positive to say about this team, ever. If you can't see all the reasons for optimism about this franchise, I don't know what to tell you, but it's not worth the effort anyway because you're only interested in spewing your negativity.

Yes, there have been some questionable coaching decisions that have contributed to the losing streak. But nobody (reasonable) would dispute that Willie, like most of our players, is to a large degree learning on the job and will go through some growing pains, himself. That's part of the deal when you hire a young & unproven coach.

When we get healthy and right the ship and make it to the conference finals, we'll revisit this thread.

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Originally Posted by Fedupfan

How about Willie figuring it out. He?s the idiot playing Graham down 16 points.

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I'm not a Devonte fan, but he's the only one that's been making threes lately. At that point of the game, I think he was 3 for 5 from long-range. He wound up 3 for 6. You don't want Trey out there - and god knows Herb is shouldn't be an option - so who do you propose that we play right now when we're in a major hole and we need an outside shooting threat?

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Originally Posted by 6warddude

is jax hurt?..or did we save him for next game because the small ball after jonas got kicked out was part of our downfall in this game..

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Naw Jax not hurt, we all know Willie hates him. Due to Willie lack of player development as you can see in Jax, Trey, Zion, and Herb, Jaxon is a product of Willie's inability to coach.

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Originally Posted by neworleanshoo

I'm not a Devonte fan, but he's the only one that's been making threes lately. At that point of the game, I think he was 3 for 5 from long-range. He wound up 3 for 6. You don't want Trey out there - and god knows Herb is shouldn't be an option - so who do you propose that we play right now when we're in a major hole and we need an outside shooting threat?

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Not someone who can’t guard a single NBA player. To make a lead become smaller, you also have to play defense. Which, this team wins when they do that. Not to mention they had a lineup on the court that included CJ, Naji, Billy, Jose, and Graham on the court at one time. On what earth is that a lineup that can make a lead shrink? Unless of course they weren’t trying to shrink the lead and get people all this valued development that Willie has been so good at. I say positive stuff too. I have said it. The problem is I also say the negative stuff that had caused this team to be 3-15 in the last 18. They have zero shot to win today and you expect me to be happy that the team I grew up on consistently ********s the bed. You all of a sudden like a lot of people think this squad will miraculously stop being injured and just start playing with energy and cohesion. They look terrible on offense. Zero resemblance of any type of sets in large parts of the game. The players look demoralized and this guy thinks they are supposed to win with joy. It’s not spewing negativity. It’s being tired of them losing constantly and especially in the middle of a season. How do you get worse as the season goes along? That’s what they have done. The only hope they have is to get Zion back and let him bulldoze to the rim to keep them in games.

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Originally Posted by stevemadden504

Naw Jax not hurt, we all know Willie hates him. Due to Willie lack of player development as you can see in Jax, Trey, Zion, and Herb, Jaxon is a product of Willie's inability to coach.

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It's not Willie's pronlem; it's the team's. JAX was here a long time before Willie.

The team did not develop....

1. JAX
2. NAW
3. DiDi
4. Kira
5. 3M3 (though I admit it's still early)
6. Herb (All Star on one end; 12th player on high school team on the other)

Even Melli was a NBA rookie when he got here.

Truly, if we had not stumbled into Naji and Jose, we would not have anything to show in terms of internal development of players (and even that might not be the case).

This team is successful only when talent developed outside the organization has shown up (BI, CJ, JV, Adams and JHart) and thanks to a lucky ping pong ball (# 1).

I’m hoping they make a trade soon. This stretch of games will be ultra tough so let’s get our lumps in while learning how to play together.

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Originally Posted by Fedupfan

How do you get worse as the season goes along?

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Massive roster upset leading to supporting guys playing vastly oversized roles for extended periods of time, messing up their chemistry, putting people into positions they should never be in, and overburdening their bodies with excessive minutes, coinciding with a period where the schedule got really tough and we played a ton of road games.

I think it's worth noting that while the defense overall has been worse than it was a few months ago, it hasn't been appalling. We're still comfortably a top 8 defense in the NBA, despite it all.

The collapse has come offensively. We went from being top 3 in offense back in November to being barely league average now. This isn't shocking: we spent a huge amount of time with our leading scorers being downgraded from Zion and BI to CJ and Jonas.

CJ and Jonas are great. As the 3rd and 4th options, they're fantastic. As the 1 and 2, you have a worse version of what we had starting last year, and we all remember how that went.