November 4th - New Orleans Pelicans vs Atlanta Hawks - 4-1

gameday in new threads 💀

🕕: 6pm CT | @SmoothieKing pic.twitter.com/zDXKpEwlou

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) November 4, 2023

Zion returns to lineup and B.I. is questionable for Saturday's game vs Hawks#Pelicans | @MorrisBartLLC

Injury Report ⬇️https://t.co/HXHNO5hoYc

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) November 3, 2023

Zion returns from his scheduled rest day, as expected. BI still listed as questionable. Again, we'll keep an eye out for updates on that.

Pels debuting their city edition jerseys today, which is cool to see. Let's hope for a win in them.

Hopefully Willie Green is learning some lessons (read: remembering the lessons he learned last season) with regards to the offense; our offense last game was our best of the young season so far, with no BI and no Zion. This is largely because we relied on heavy usage of our best statistical lineup so far, but also because lacking those guys meant that we didn't use them poorly. Every year it seems to take Green a while to remember how to use his stars properly, and this year has begun no differently, at least with Zion; hopefully last game's larger sample size of the 3 shooter lineups will inspire him to play Zion in some of those contexts and to move him away from the post-ups.

Let's see how things go.

I'm not sure why are they listing BI as questionable when we all know he isn't playing...
We were hot last couple of games, i hope it keeps going on. Would be nice to have Jose for this one. Herb can't guard both Young and Murray :/

Zion's defense has to be at "mediocre +" level today. Hopefully Young continues his bad shooting streak against us also.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mrakar

I'm not sure why are they listing BI as questionable when we all know he isn't playing... .

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Because they've already announced that his scans came back clear, so it's just an issue of when BI feels ready to return and nobody is going to list ''BI - Out (Doesn't wanna play)'' on an injury report.

That’s pretty much it. Can’t just say he doesn’t feel himself on the injury report. Lol

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Originally Posted by Fedupfan

That’s pretty much it. Can’t just say he doesn’t feel himself on the injury report. Lol

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Exactly - can't say he's gonna play because what if he doesn't? Can't say he's out because he could always change his mind and even if he doesn't, it would be a horrible look for the team to list something like that. Gotta just run with questionable.

Yea, like its hard to write "OUT - right knee tendinitis" instead of "Questionable - right knee tendinitis". What are you talking about?
I know there is some tactical advantage with not letting other team know who is playing, but these are not playoff games, teams are not prepering for specific matchup...

Our PR team is making a comedy out of our injuries for couple of years. Like we didnt have enough "reevaluated in 2 weeks" announcements, questionable for a month is just what we need.

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Originally Posted by Mrakar

Yea, like its hard to write "OUT - right knee tendinitis" instead of "Questionable - right knee tendinitis". What are you talking about?
I know there is some tactical advantage with not letting other team know who is playing, but these are not playoff games, teams are not prepering for specific matchup...

Our PR team is making a comedy out of our injuries for couple of years. Like we didnt have enough "reevaluated in 2 weeks" announcements, questionable for a month is just what we need.

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Except they already told us that there is nothing to be done about that tendinitis. There's nothing on the scans. It's just up to BI whether he feels ready to play - and therefore we all know that ''OUT - right knee tendinitis'' means ''OUT - Brandon doesn't feel up to it''. Which is fine, I don't care that much, it's November, but the team is never going to make it that clear. At least by putting it as questionable they can regard it as a late scratch and give off the impression that he tried and just couldn't make it come game time.

Saturday night fits �� #UltraDrip | @MichelobULTRA pic.twitter.com/xQmpBcDjBG

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) November 4, 2023

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

Exactly - can't say he's gonna play because what if he doesn't? Can't say he's out because he could always change his mind and even if he doesn't, it would be a horrible look for the team to list something like that. Gotta just run with questionable.

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Brandon Ingram (Right Knee Tendinitis) is AVAILABLE for tonight’s game vs. Atlanta

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) November 4, 2023

And there we are - welcome back BI.

Will Guillory tweets that there's no minutes restriction on Zion or BI. Expected for Zion since he was just out on rest, but good to see on BI - we know how our coaching staff loves their minutes restrictions

Willie Green said "a limited minute restriction" for Brandon Ingram vs. Atlanta, indicating that Ingram may be slightly under how many minutes he normally would play, but not by much

— Jim Eichenhofer (@Jim_Eichenhofer) November 4, 2023

Correction to Guillory - no restriction for Zion, small restriction for BI

Whoever is responsible for Bally’s update needs to be fired

So glad to see them leaning into the city jerseys and videography for the intros. Always found it weird that the New Orleans team - a team from a state with such a rich cultural tradition to draw on, so much local mythology and folklore, etc - has had such a bland aesthetic. I know that the owners are super religious which kinda puts the lid on a lot of the more fun stuff but still.

i want to see good ball movement like i did last game and getting everyone involved.....

go pels..

Liked that, ball swings around to CJ for an open three - misses, Zion gets the OREB and immediately kicks it out to BI who takes the C&S three. BI to the line after a foul.

BI with a pullup three - misses, and maybe it was early in the shot clock, but I can't get mad at that in semi-transition.

Loving the team shot selection early, even if a lot of them aren't going down. Everything is from 3 and at the rim, just how you want it.

Trae playing for the foul not for the bucket, karma bites him as Herb rips it and goes coast to coast for the bucket

Loving the variety of looks so far. Herb handling, BI handling, CJ handling, JV, Herb, BI, Hawkins all taking shots, it's coming from everywhere

Bi lookin fly. Herb really on it as well

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

Loving the variety of looks so far. Herb handling, BI handling, CJ handling, JV, Herb, BI, Hawkins all taking shots, it's coming from everywhere

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The give and go between Jonas and CJ… where has it been? So simple but looks great

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Originally Posted by JJackisangry

The give and go between Jonas and CJ… where has it been? So simple but looks great

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There's still so much this team can do that isn't complicated but should work. The old 2 man game Zion used to run with JJ Redick could easily be replicated with CJ, or even Matt Ryan - or, when he returns, Trey. So many options for easy offense.

Herb is on one tonight

Hawkins' shot is falling right now too

I want to see Zion on ball + CJ + Hawkins + Matt Ryan at some point so badly. 5th player can interchange but the offense of that potential unit could be insane.

I have no idea why Dyson is out there right now instead of Zion.

Good offense from Dyson, rattling in a corner 3 and then hitting a cross court pass to Zion

Second quarter clunkier than the first but it picked back up towards the end. Pels go into the half up 60-53.

Want the guys to be careful with the offense. That's twice in a row now we've had dribbling into midrangers with corner shooters open. The shots went so we can't be too mad but it's something to monitor.

We are always so cold coming out of halftime. Like fumbling the ball looney toons bad. Give them a basketball to hold while you are having the team talk or something.

Just looking miserable right now.

Let them just dribble all of halftime. Make halftime handles happy hour or something.

We are currently running a lineup with zero shooters.

What is going on with these rotations?

Getting buried under a combination of missing shots (happens, can't be mad) sloppy play (annoying, can be mad) and completely bonkers lineup choices (absolute nonsense, what are you doing Green?).

Complete circus shot by JHawk. What a finish

Can we do a timeout please?

They're up 9 and *they* called a time out before we did.

Come on, Green!

Matt Ryan has played 8 minutes - we are 5/18 from 3.

It's like we've learned nothing so far this season.

We have Zion + 3 shooters, let's see how it goes

It’s the psychological aspect we have to master. You are bound to let your foot off the gas at some point but this trend has plagued us for years. We shut off our brains for an entire quarter when we only have a 7 point lead. We can’t have this continue to happen.

My one complaint with this lineup is that the rebounding is awful, I'd much rather JV be on the court than Dyson as the 5th guy - it's not even like it would clog the lane more, nobody is guarding Dyson on the perimeter.

From up 7 at the half to down 11 going into the 4th. It's just ridiculous.

Jhawk is bailing us out a bit here. This could have been ugly

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Originally Posted by JJackisangry

Jhawk is bailing us out a bit here. This could have been ugly

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Helps that he's the only one of our shooters who is hitting anything tonight. He's 4/6 from 3, the rest of the team is 3/17

I've bit my tongue long enough. # 1 is as lazy as they come when it comes to playing defense.

...AND....

He's played like a turnstile on the perimeter.

I wanna see what everybody else sees, but I can't see mirages like others apparently do.

Blows my mind how bad this team has been in the 3rd quarter.

Defense has got to look better. Zion's looked half-asleep (particularly in the 3rd), and most of the rest of the team hasn't been much better. Herb and Dyson have been on it, Hawkins has been competing, and that's about the best of it. There won't be any comeback if guys keep being so lackadaisical.

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Originally Posted by boot318

Blows my mind how bad this team has been in the 3rd quarter.

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Feels like it has to be a coaching problem. Why are guys not ready to play coming out after the half? And why is JV not on the floor in the 3rd quarter while the Pelicans are getting massively out rebounded

It legitimately feels like everytime we score, we immediately foul them and give up FTs.

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Originally Posted by hornetsrebirth

Feels like it has to be a coaching problem. Why are guys not ready to play coming out after the half? And why is JV not on the floor in the 3rd quarter while the Pelicans are getting massively out rebounded

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Why do we come out in the third and immediately do none of the things that worked in the first? Why do we experiment with 3 minutes of a never-before seen lineup featuring zero shooters?

The mysteries of Willie Green's mind are an enigma.