Back home for the next 4️⃣ games starting tonight!
— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) February 17, 2021
🏀 vs. Portland
🕗 8 p.m. CT
📺 @FOXSportsNOLA
📻 100.3 FM @ESPNRadioNOLA @SmoothieKing | #WontBowDown pic.twitter.com/OX6NpgnDqv
Start of a 4 game homestand tonight on the second night of a back to back. Luckily, our guys didn't get ridiculous minutes last night so they shouldn't be too worn out.
The Blazers are 17-10 so far this year. They're on a 5 game winning streak. There have been some people who have pointed out that they've largely played bad teams so far, and that's true (of their 17 wins, 11 of them have come against teams which currently have losing records) and whenever they've come up against a really good team (Utah, Clippers, Indiana, Milwaukee) they tend to lose more often than not; the exception being Philadelphia, who they've beaten twice. The people who point that out aren't wrong. However, that's the kind of information that's only really promising if you're a good team: we suck, so we're exactly the kind of team they usually beat.
Portland so far this year are kind of like us, in terms of statistical profile: we're a good offensive team (7th overall right now, driven up almost ten spots in the month of February by Point Zion) with a very poor defense (27th). Portland is exactly the same, just a bit moreso; they're 5th overall in ORtg and 29th in DRtg. They're one of the few teams more pathetic on defense than we are, but their offense has been even more potent. This is largely due to Damian Lillard continuing to do his Lillard things: averaging 29/4/7 on 44/38/93 splits so far this season, good for 62.2% TS.
Both Harry Giles and Rodney Hood missed last game for Portland, and McCollum, Nurkic, and Collins have all been out for weeks.
Can we win tonight, if we play at our best? Yeah, I think so. Will we actually do that? There is no reason for us to believe that we will; this team is nothing if not inconsistent. That said, we are a bit better at home (7-5) than on the road (5-10) so that is something.