November 21st - New Orleans Pelicans v Golden State Warriors - 9-7

Last one of the homestand 🏠

🕖: 7:00pm CT
📺: Bally Sports NO/ NBA TV
📻: @995WRNO#Pelicans | @SmoothieKing pic.twitter.com/NZ2TfBXdhu

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) November 21, 2022

Zion is listed as probable to play, Trey is listed as questionable - that's for the injury report for us.

Tonight we play the 8-9 Warriors, who have won 3 out of their last 4 despite a very slow start to the year. Now, in fairness, those three wins were against the Spurs, Knicks, and Rockets, which is not exactly the high watermark of quality basketball, but that shouldn't make the team complacent: we're prone to boneheaded play at times too, so we can be taken advantage of if the team doesn't show up locked in.

Let's see what happens.

Who does HE guard tonight?

Draymond?

Clay?

Andrew?

I'm sure JV takes Looney and Herb will try his hand on Steph.

YIKES!!!

Its not a good thing that we play them after they played all of these bad teams and are getting their confidence back.
We had luck 1st time we met them since they rested everyone, now we will see how it looks when they are complete. I think we matchup awfull with them, but its one regular season game so everything can happen. I will not be disapointed with a loss as long we fought good and have no injuries.
And of course, we have to take care of the Spurs and Grizzlies without Morant and possibly Bane...

No steph klay and dray again... need to play them better this time around.

golden state played last night and starters played 30+ minutes....if golden state does not go crazy from 3 in the first period like boston did to us then we should take this game....golden state 1-8 on the road, winning last night....zion should not have any problems guarding green tonight if he plays.....

https://twitter.com/_andrew_lopez/st...ZlEU0Nlf5OxhAQ

Looks like the warriors are sitting everyone again.

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Originally Posted by TennMan23

https://twitter.com/_andrew_lopez/st...ZlEU0Nlf5OxhAQ

Looks like the warriors are sitting everyone again.

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Good. I want to win. We have a better chance to win if Steph doesn't play. I admit that I feel bad for any kids out there who really wanted to see Steph play. But not too much.

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Originally Posted by As I See It

Who does HE guard tonight?

Draymond?

Clay?

Andrew?

I'm sure JV takes Looney and Herb will try his hand on Steph.

YIKES!!!

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Won't mater tonight, but I'm not sure why you would be concerned about Zion guarding Dray. Pretty easy matchup at this point in his career

Just checked the exact numbers: Warriors are 1-8 on the road so far this year.

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Originally Posted by pelafanatic

Won't mater tonight, but I'm not sure why you would be concerned about Zion guarding Dray. Pretty easy matchup at this point in his career

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No such thing as easy for HIM.

Well, that's how you'd expect a quarter to go in this matchup given who is and isn't playing.

Slow first quarter back from Zion, looked alright generally but was missing shots he should make and was a bit timid on a few plays, hopefully we'll see that pick back up as he was just rounding into form when he went out.

Ingram came in ready to play, which is always fun.

What I love so much about running up big leads early is that it *should* take stress off the team. Note, not urgency, but stress.

I you're up 19 after the first, you aren't required to ever win another quarter. You can lose every quarter by a few points and still win double digits. That's how significant that safety cushion is, so you should basically never let anything rattle you after that point and just execute your game with no pressure.

Of course it rarely works out that way, but that's how I feel about it.

Up 24 at the half. So far, just pretty clear outclassing. Jose has been just working.

This is exactly how this game should be going.

Ingram's just having a barn burner of a game

Warriors have 9 assists so far this game.

Feels good seeing this blowout. I expected it to be close like last game but this is way better! :)

What a massacre.

Did Alvarado dunk?

My god what a butt whooping

45 point victory to end the homestand.

That's fun. Pelicans improve to 10-7 on the season, 6-3 at home.

Our next game is against the 6-12 Spurs, btw.

Yesterday, the New Orleans Saints defeated the defending Super Bowl Champions Los Angeles Rams in New Orleans.

The New Orleans Pelicans just defeated the defending NBA Champions Golden State Warriors in New Orleans.

What were the odds of this happening?

Win #10 comes on Nov 21st. Last season, win #10 was on Dec 17th. We're almost a month ahead.

I feel sorry (again) for the folks who paid good money to see the "real" Warriors....however, the Pel's played for the moment and really took care of business tonight....

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Originally Posted by ramsters60

I feel sorry (again) for the folks who paid good money to see the "real" Warriors....however, the Pel's played for the moment and really took care of business tonight....

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Exactly. Seen a lot of Warriors fans on twitter complaining about happy Pels fans because it wasn't the 'real' Warriors. Who cares? Team can only play the team in front of them, nobody felt bad for us in past years when we had massive injury issues. We played the Warriors that we were given and hey, they might not be 'real' but that W sure is.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

Exactly. Seen a lot of Warriors fans on twitter complaining about happy Pels fans because it wasn't the 'real' Warriors. Who cares? Team can only play the team in front of them, nobody felt bad for us in past years when we had massive injury issues. We played the Warriors that we were given and hey, they might not be 'real' but that W sure is.

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And if it were to come down to tiebreakers at the end of the season to determine seeding, we're guaranteed no worse than breakeven for the season series.

That went exactly like you'd expect from a serious playoff team.

That said, the NBA needs to go ahead and cut the number of games down to 72 or 70. Just eliminate all b2b.

The NBA has already had several days with zero nationally televised games. Not even on NBA tv.

82 games just isn't worth it.

Zion moved his feet very well on defense. Nice to see improvement.

hope things keep up like this, because I am enjoying the relative silence of the anti Graham folks lately....

They will spend thanksgiving back in new orleans. Thats nice of them. :);)

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Originally Posted by ramsters60

hope things keep up like this, because I am enjoying the relative silence of the anti Graham folks lately....

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He's been much much better than last year! Still would prefer to see his minutes go to dyson but most of his problems are lineup related rather than individual this year.

Last Year: 34.1% 3pt%, 51.4%TS, -1.0 BPM
This year so far: 41.7% 3pt%, 57%TS, +0.1BPM

His FTr is up, his TOV% is down, his BLK% is up, and his 3PTr is up.

What more could you want?

Our next 5 games, and the record of the team we're facing:

- Spurs (6-12)
- Grizzlies (10-7)
- Thunder (7-10)
- Raptors (9-8)
- Spurs again (6-12)

We need to go into this 5 game stretch thinking we can win at least 3 of them. Possibly 4. It's not even impossible that we win all 5. But if we aim for 3, we'd be entering december 13-9. 14-8 isn't off the table.

This is a good place to be.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

Our next 5 games, and the record of the team we're facing:

- Spurs (6-12)
- Grizzlies (10-7)
- Thunder (7-10)
- Raptors (9-8)
- Spurs again (6-12)

We need to go into this 5 game stretch thinking we can win at least 3 of them. Possibly 4. It's not even impossible that we win all 5. But if we aim for 3, we'd be entering december 13-9. 14-8 isn't off the table.

This is a good place to be.

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Yep. No Morant for the Grizz, right?

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Originally Posted by luckyman

Zion moved his feet very well on defense. Nice to see improvement.

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I thought so too. He even kept Poole in front of him for the most part, which is no easy task. Overall I liked Zion’s game even though he wasn’t terribly aggressive. I think one of the problems we had on offense was Zion was forcing the issue a bit too much and stopping the flow of the ball. I think Zion made a conscious effort to keep the ball moving in this one.

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Originally Posted by Freyfamilyreuni

I thought so too. He even kept Poole in front of him for the most part, which is no easy task. Overall I liked Zion’s game even though he wasn’t terribly aggressive. I think one of the problems we had on offense was Zion was forcing the issue a bit too much and stopping the flow of the ball. I think Zion made a conscious effort to keep the ball moving in this one.

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He sees the court really well. He will be averaging at least 8 assists a game soon enough

To keep it real, I saw a lot of matador defense last night. Of course my glasses aren't 'rose-colored'.

On the flip side, DD is the real deal. He will be a force by the time he's 22...just like TM3.

That was nice win a bery good home-stand. Let’s move on further :cool:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by luckyman

That went exactly like you'd expect from a serious playoff team.

That said, the NBA needs to go ahead and cut the number of games down to 72 or 70. Just eliminate all b2b.

The NBA has already had several days with zero nationally televised games. Not even on NBA tv.

82 games just isn't worth it.

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I see a lot of people saying this, but if teams see an advantage to getting their stars more rest and having them play ~70 games instead of 82, won't they see the same advantage by having them play ~60 instead of 72?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by luckyman

That went exactly like you'd expect from a serious playoff team.

That said, the NBA needs to go ahead and cut the number of games down to 72 or 70. Just eliminate all b2b.

The NBA has already had several days with zero nationally televised games. Not even on NBA tv.

82 games just isn't worth it.

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Do you really think players would forego 12% (or more) of their salary to support a shorter schedule? If not, do you think the governors would be willing subsidize the lost revenue for the sake of player salaries. Right now, the players have it good; they get paid to play an 82 game schedule and most play considerably less.

So, I guess it depends on your perspective as to whether an 82 game schedule is 'worth it or not.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Freyfamilyreuni

I thought so too. He even kept Poole in front of him for the most part, which is no easy task. Overall I liked Zion’s game even though he wasn’t terribly aggressive. I think one of the problems we had on offense was Zion was forcing the issue a bit too much and stopping the flow of the ball. I think Zion made a conscious effort to keep the ball moving in this one.

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The issue has nothing to do with ''Zion stopping the flow of the ball''. When Zion has the offense and is creating from the perimeter, the team offense is fantastic. Well above league average.

The problem is that, for most of this season, we've played Zion primarily out of the post and while Zion is fine from the post, the post itself is not an efficient driver of team offense.

Zion needs to be aggressive to maximise this team. He just needs to be aggressive as a creator from the perimeter. When he does that, the offense soars. He needs to be given the lineups and opportunities to make that happen, but it's also on him to take those opportunities when they come up. Before the injury, he was starting to do that and then in this first game back he was being timid again - hopefully it doesn't last long and he can get back to the good stuff.

An in-season tournament played around the time the All-Star Game is traditionally played, with playoff ramifications and large payouts to the players on winning teams, would solve a lot of the NBA?s problems. They would be able to reduce the number of regular season games to minimize back-to-backs. A tournament with actual stakes would put eyeballs on the NBA after the NFL has wrapped up its season, thus generating revenue to offset the loss of regular season games.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

The issue has nothing to do with ''Zion stopping the flow of the ball''. When Zion has the offense and is creating from the perimeter, the team offense is fantastic. Well above league average.

The problem is that, for most of this season, we've played Zion primarily out of the post and while Zion is fine from the post, the post itself is not an efficient driver of team offense.

Zion needs to be aggressive to maximise this team. He just needs to be aggressive as a creator from the perimeter. When he does that, the offense soars. He needs to be given the lineups and opportunities to make that happen, but it's also on him to take those opportunities when they come up. Before the injury, he was starting to do that and then in this first game back he was being timid again - hopefully it doesn't last long and he can get back to the good stuff.

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I think Zion is better on the perimeter because it lets him get a full head of steam to go downhill to the basket which is practically unstoppable. He can play with his back to the basket just fine but its not where he is the most special.

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Originally Posted by Spec3333

An in-season tournament played around the time the All-Star Game is traditionally played, with playoff ramifications and large payouts to the players on winning teams, would solve a lot of the NBA?s problems. They would be able to reduce the number of regular season games to minimize back-to-backs. A tournament with actual stakes would put eyeballs on the NBA after the NFL has wrapped up its season, thus generating revenue to offset the loss of regular season games.

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This is all fine and good, until the first time a Giannis or a Jayson Tatum or a Luka Doncic suffers a season ending injury in this "tournament" and costs their team a shot at the title. The only thing that matters is championships. Don't believe me? Ask any Lakers or Celtics fan.

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Originally Posted by hornetsrebirth

I think Zion is better on the perimeter because it lets him get a full head of steam to go downhill to the basket which is practically unstoppable. He can play with his back to the basket just fine but its not where he is the most special.

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Absolutely agree.

Maximises his vision too. Zion is good in the post, but even good post scoring isn't that great for team offense.

Will post scoring completely die?

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Originally Posted by AusPel

Will post scoring completely die?

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Nah, it'll always be there as a tool in the arsenal, especially for superstars who can work it at a high level (Embiid, Jokic, etc). It allows you to take advantage of certain mismatches, and by having it as an option you stop yourself becoming one-dimensional; it's always there as a release valve for poor offense. Puts a floor on your scoring potential.

But the days of low post scoring being a viable primary option for a good NBA offense are pretty much already dead.