October 22nd - New Orleans Pelicans @ Toronto Raptors - 0-0

[Nichols]

Man I just finished the game! Well that sucked! I still thought we looked very good and that was with our best player Zion Williamson not playing who I’m confident we win with. We are so young and it will take a few games before we get the chemistry close to teams who just won an NBA Championship.

Jrue had a terrible night and he alone playing better we win. He just had a really weird game where he never felt comfortable and didn’t show the aggressiveness we need from him. Just wait for MVP Jrue Griff was talking about and watch out! Fluke night he will turn it up.

Lonzo played all around solid looking very good from 3pt. I wasn’t so happy with his minutes and would like to see them go up a good bit more somewhere between 30-34 and he only got 24 including the OT minutes he played. Would have liked having him on the floor to close the game but I understood the lineup and trust Gentry. He needs to get better at attacking the rim and this kid could really be great. He’s a legit 15/10/6 PG with 30+ minutes a night. Can’t wait to see him grow.

JJ I thought looked great tonight and played exactly like we beoifrn him in to do. Guy was lights out making shots all over and clutch ones as well. Would like to see him get a few more mpg as well but not much to keep his legs fresh. He’s been averaging about 30 mpg the last few seasons which I would love but with our guard talent we can possibly give him some rest more nights when Philly has no options. Nice to see he hasn’t lost a step either with his quickness.

Ingram played an all around good game with very solid defense as well. I didn’t understand not asking him to lock down Siakim down as he was guarding him well when on him but mostly had Annouby. He had 22/5/5 but could have made a few more shots and obviously played better. Just shows you how good he can be leaving some buckets that should have dropped and a couple of passes off the board.

Favors did his job with nothing special. He should have some really good games and I expect this to be on the downside of his games. I like the rotation of Melli/Okafor for him for now and think his minutes look solid. When Zion gets back some things will oncisouoy change with who plays of these bigs minutes.

Hart looks like an absolute beast and what I have been saying as the most forgotten man in the trade. He was a nation champion at Villanova as the best player and has done nothing but be a versatile defensive, hustling, fan favorite, SG/SF who can light it up from 3 as a legit 3 and D player for the Lakers. Has more then just 3 point potential and was such a huge get for this team that I know had to kill the Lakers losing him. We are just so guard spoiled he gets a little lost haha but won’t be for long!

Okafor looks like the bully center I always thought he could develop into. He was someone I always said simply just needs time to get his body right and continue developing his skill set. I thought he looked like that player and someone who can really be a solid threat for us. Having Favors and Melli with very different skill sets that compliment what we lose with him making us king matchups.

Melli looks exactly like what we lost in Niko but a little more of an ability to be a center. He looked great tonight as he did all pre season. He was an incredible find for this team and has filled our need for a stretch shooting big for the next 5+ years.

Frank looked very solid tonight as a 2 way player. Loved that he worked out with Jrue all off season and when watching him he looks very similar to how his style is defending. Another young guard who I think is going to be one of the better bench players in the league along NAW in a year giving us a Lillard/CJ duo off our bench!

NAW really didn’t look bad tonight but shots just weren’t following. I like that he had the confidence as a rookie to keep shooting. Those shots will fall and he’s gonna have some truly fun nights to watch. The kid is that good where he’s one of those players that has his own great uniqueness you can’t really compare to someone else.

[DaFranchise80]

Team went toe to toe with the reigning defending champion and took them to OT. I was quite impressed. These type of challenges will only make this young squad a lot better down the road. Kudos to Gentry for keeping his guys on the floor during the ring ceremony. Let that feeling soak in.

[carpo]

This may have already be mentioned here.... but look at pretty much any play Siakam handles the ball for more than a dribble... it is the most obvious carry in the league, like I get it doesn't get called often, but if he was working as a waiter he would never drop a tray of drinks

[Pelicanidae]

This may have already be mentioned here.... but look at pretty much any play Siakam handles the ball for more than a dribble... it is the most obvious carry in the league, like I get it doesn't get called often, but if he was working as a waiter he would never drop a tray of drinks

Almost nobody ever gets called for a carry, ever. Kyrie, Kemba, Lillard, Curry, pretty much all elite ball handlers carry on damn near every possession these days.

[UNO Gracias]

While the Raptors are the defending NBA champs, let’s be real, without Kawhi and Danny Green this isn’t the same “championship winning” team.

[Pelicanidae]

While the Raptors are the defending NBA champs, let’s be real, without Kawhi and Danny Green this isn’t the same “championship winning” team.

Doesn't have to be.

Siakam is an all-star calibre player.
Kyle Lowry is still a fantastic player.
Serge Ibaka is still good.
VanVleet has been brilliant for them for a while.
Anunoby has had a good career so far.

They may not be the ''championship winning'' Raptors, but they're still ''definite playoff lock, possibly even as a top 4 seed still'' Toronto Raptors, and that's good enough.

[ragincaucasian]

Yes the Raptors have a good team still, but point blank...we should have won.

Weird horrible game by Jrue

Weird lineups at the absolute wrong times by Gentry

Plays should have been run for Melli and Redick in the 4th and OT, and just weren't.

No Zion Williamson

All of that and we took them to overtime in their own house.

I think Zo should be in the floor with catch-and-shoot guys like JJ and Melli in crunch time. Jrue doesn't have to be on the floor in all situations. Hopefully Alvin learns from this.

[HartOfaPelican]

I love all the excuses people give for why the pelicans lost. “The Raptors are the Champs” blah blah blah.

Gentry blew this game and you all know it.

When we’re one game out of 7th or 8th in the playoff hunt. It’s games like this you can point back to.

[Taker597]

I love all the excuses people give for why the pelicans lost. “The Raptors are the Champs” blah blah blah.

Gentry blew this game and you all know it.

When we’re one game out of 7th or 8th in the playoff hunt. It’s games like this you can point back to.

What are you talking about? We all know Gentry blew it. Take a chill pill. If this year one of Gentry for you. Don't worry... It's gonna be about 20 games of the exact same thing before he figures out his best rotation. He's so bad at game time situations that it's what probably got us Zion.

Just ride this last year of Gentry out and let him get promoted to FO. It's all we can do at this point.

Not like there is a hot coaching candidate to scoup up anyway.

[PelDave]

Viewing all the postgame comments, I need to ask...honestly...what are our chances against the Mavericks on Friday?

[SeapeaNOLA]

Viewing all the postgame comments, I need to ask...honestly...what are our chances against the Mavericks on Friday?

Negative zero.

#Pelslife

[13 - 3]

Viewing all the postgame comments, I need to ask...honestly...what are our chances against the Mavericks on Friday?

[13 - 3]

There is no need for panic. The Pelicans did a lot of good things. They went toe to toe with the champs for 11 rounds. https://t.co/bdFgAwX0fc

— David M. Grubb (@DMGrubb) October 23, 2019

[luckyman]

Viewing all the postgame comments, I need to ask...honestly...what are our chances against the Mavericks on Friday?

Depends on if coach starts pulling fans from the stands to give some run.

Might be a gem out there for our 27 man rotation.

[Pelicanidae]

Viewing all the postgame comments, I need to ask...honestly...what are our chances against the Mavericks on Friday?

Not too bad actually.

As bad as the rotations were in game 1, we still could have easily won if just one or two more shots had fallen, or if Jrue hadn't been ice cold, and that's against a good team with at least a little depth in Toronto.

Mavericks are not a good team. They have zero depth whatsoever. And the odds are that Jrue will have a better game offensively. So we have a good shot at it.

[Eman5805]

I love all the excuses people give for why the pelicans lost. “The Raptors are the Champs” blah blah blah.

Gentry blew this game and you all know it.

When we’re one game out of 7th or 8th in the playoff hunt. It’s games like this you can point back to.

Go somewhere with that nonsense. Because I promise you we are going to win games we should've lost. It's just as valid a scenario as any given we've played 1.2% of the season already.

[msusousaphone]

Yes the Raptors have a good team still, but point blank...we should have won.

Weird horrible game by Jrue

Weird lineups at the absolute wrong times by Gentry

Plays should have been run for Melli and Redick in the 4th and OT, and just weren't.

No Zion Williamson

All of that and we took them to overtime in their own house.

I think Zo should be in the floor with catch-and-shoot guys like JJ and Melli in crunch time. Jrue doesn't have to be on the floor in all situations. Hopefully Alvin learns from this.

Naw (pun intended).

Dae pointed it out after the game, our team is insanely young and has never played together before. It makes sense the more experienced Raptors with more continuity came back and robbed us of a game we outplayed them in.

Get used to it.

Continuity is one of the most important and underrated aspects in the NBA. We have none of it. Not only do we lack team continuity, we have so many guys that don't even have league continuity. This will be the year of "we should have one but didn't close it out".

[Pelicanidae]

Looking back over some of the numbers from this game, what really strikes me (in an unpleasant way) is how few points we gathered in our preferred ways.

We had 38 points in the paint, which isn't the worst ever, but it's not great, and we only got 13 fast break points. 13! For a team that's trying to run the ball down opponent's throats, that's really below par. For comparison, Toronto had 20 fast break points, and that's not even their priority as a unit. Part of that is missing Zion, yes, and part of it is Jrue's bad night, but it's still not a good look for a team which had Lonzo, Ingram, NAW, Okafor, Redick, etc, all healthy and able to contribute big minutes.

The good news, is that overall if you look at some of the key players' shot charts from this game, the tendencies are fairly close to where you want them overall.

Here's Jrue's shot chart from last game:

Jrue shot chart: 22nd october v Raptors pic.twitter.com/H0rXw5yNf7

— Pelicanidae (@Pelicanidae1) October 24, 2019

As you can see, pretty much everything comes at the rim or behind the arc. There's only one shot in the midrange, beyond the paint, which is pretty good. This implies that the issue is less ''Jrue making bad shot choices'', at least in terms of location, and more of him just being cold. Which we knew, but still, it's nice to see that. This is the kind of profile you want to see most of the time.

Similarly, here's Hart from the same game.

Josh Hart: 22nd October v Raptors pic.twitter.com/o32dfQubLU

— Pelicanidae (@Pelicanidae1) October 24, 2019

All but one of his shot attempts came either in the corners or in the paint, and the single shot outside of the paint was baaaarely outside. Again, this is generally the shot chart you want to see, especially from someone who is fitting into a role rather than single handedly running the offense himself. It's efficient, clean, and implies that people are actually getting the shots that they want.

Here's the shot chart of the entire team, just for comparison:

Pelicans shot chart: 22nd October v Raptors pic.twitter.com/AraVPkDoWi

— Pelicanidae (@Pelicanidae1) October 24, 2019

44% of our shots came from beyond the arc, which is very very good, and our team produced 1.27 points per shot on those attempts. That's good, in terms of frequency and efficiency. We shot the three well, and we shot it a lot. Another good sign is the efficiency we had at the rim: shooting at the rim, we produced 1.12 points per shot, which is also pretty solid: not elite, since we only shot 56% at the basket, but still more than 1 point per shot which is the threshold you really want to be getting over.

The issue for us, in terms of scoring, is that midrange: 31% of our shots came from the midrange, and we only produced 0.63 points per shot on those attempts. That's just really bad value, and is never optimal. A lot of this comes from the Toronto defense; they, like most modern teams, would really prefer to give up the midrange than to allow better and more valuable shot attempts, but some of it also comes from complacency on offense. The desire to get a shot up quickly occasionally overwhelmed the desire to get a good shot, and that led to a lot of these midrangers.

Our leading shot taker was Brandon Ingram. Here's his shot chart from this game:

Ingram shot chart: 22nd October v Raptors pic.twitter.com/LuZq02ydhe

— Pelicanidae (@Pelicanidae1) October 24, 2019

I'm encouraged by the higher volume of threes he took here, and he made them pretty efficiently. I'm also encouraged by the fact that he gravitated towards the corners on these threes, since those are obviously the best shots to take from beyond the arc when you can get them, and it's a good sign for things going forward: he generally took more threes from these areas in pre-season too, so hopefully that's a trend.

What I would like to see from him moving forward is a concentration on choosing shots more selectively in the midrange (yeah yeah, I know). He took 4 straight up midrangers, and another 3 free throw line jumpers, and on these shots he shot 2 for 7. They're not the best of shots, and I remember watching the game that some of these came fairly early in the shot clock when we should have been hunting for a better look. Obviously we're still super early in the season, so hopefully some more of that optimisation can come and we can see those longer twos creeping into higher value threes, and some of those FT line jumpers sneaking inwards into more valuable finishes at or around the basket.

Good game, a lot of encouraging stuff to take from it. Looking forward to the next one.

[Pelicanidae]

Just for comparison, here's the Toronto Raptor's shot chart for the same game:

Raptors shot chart v Pelicans 22nd October pic.twitter.com/0b1Cls5Evx

— Pelicanidae (@Pelicanidae1) October 24, 2019

Compare it to ours. Almost nothing in the midrange. This is a great example of a highly optimised offense: they actually produced fewer points per shot than us on threes and at-rim attempts, but that relatively low efficiency didn't matter too much in the end because they just took more of the good shots than we did. Whenever they had an awkward, low-value midranger, they passed it up for a better shot, and that meant that even though they had a rougher shooting night than us, the accumulated shot-value of the attempts they DID take ended up squeaking us out at the closing line.

[smcgull]

Team went toe to toe with the reigning defending champion and took them to OT. I was quite impressed. These type of challenges will only make this young squad a lot better down the road. Kudos to Gentry for keeping his guys on the floor during the ring ceremony. Let that feeling soak in.

So correct. Skills wise they are equal to any team in the league, and with depth too. They are just young.

[PelDave]

Thanks. Just wanted an honest opinion and not hyperbole.

[BIG_CITY_BOI]

I feel the Pelicans can compete with most teams in the NBA. We can beat the Mavs if everyone do their job.