8th January - New Orleans Pelicans VS Chicago Bulls - 12-25
Welcome to yet another home game. With regards to last game's loss against the Utah Jazz, the NBA ruled in the 2 Minute Report that Gobert did indeed foul Ingram, and that we should have gotten free throws. They are not, from what we can tell, going to do anything about it. We are now 12-25, meaning we're on pace to win 26 games this season. Going .500 from here until the end of the year would get us 35 wins.
Moving onwards.
Tonight we take on the Chicago Bulls, and Jrue Holiday will miss his second consecutive game with his elbow complaint.Pelicans vs Bulls Injury Report: https://t.co/88Azg0kHDA
— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) January 7, 2020
Unfortunately for those of you who have been keeping track of our defense, you will be saddened to hear that our recent increase has regressed: after making it up as high as 23rd, we have slipped back down to 26th on defense. Some of that is just bad luck, combined with other teams worse than us having good performances, so it's not anything to get too sad about but still; it's happened.
The Chicago Bulls are 13-24, so pretty much the same record as us, and are currently riding a 4 game losing streak; their last win was against the pitiful Hawks. Wendell Carter Jr exited their game on Monday early with an ankle issue and is questionable for this game; Otto Porter Jr is still out, as he has been for weeks.
The Bulls have the reverse of the issue we had for a while; they have a top 10 defense, 7th in the NBA, but the 28th ranked offense. Can't score. That's their issue; just can't score. And it's not that they're slow; they're 14th in the league in pace, they go faster than the Lakers do, they just can't score. Dead last (30th) in FG%, 17th in 3PT%, 19th in FT%. They lead the league in steals with 10 per game, but are bottom 10 in rebounds, assists, and blocks; they don't crack the top 15 in any of the Four Offensive Factors.
Their leading scorer is Zach Lavine, averaging about 23ppg on about 39% from 3. That's good. On the other hand, Lavine cannot defend my mother, and she's 5'1 and 54 years old. It's not unlikely that Ingram will be able to hunt for matchups with Lavine from time to time, and if he can do that then that's a perfect mismatch to attack: Ingram is pretty good at driving off the bounce, and Lavine has all the resilience of a piece of wet bread.
Their rookie, Coby White, has been dreadful according to pretty much all Bulls fans I know. I've only watched a handful of Bulls games this year, and this seems to be true. He's shooting 37% from the floor and 35% from 3, averaging 11 points in 24 minutes a night. He, too, cannot defend anyone.
The strength of the Bulls defense comes from Wendell Carter (out), Thad Young, Kris Dunn, and Tomas Satoransky, who have all been very good defensively so far this season, as well as solid backup rim protection from Daniel Gafford; these will be the guys we have to score on to win.
So let's do that. #WBD
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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae
he's locating guys well right now
