Late night hoops 🌙 #PelicansGameday
— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) March 16, 2021
🏀 at Portland
🕘 9 p.m. CT
📺 @NBAonTNT/@FOXSportsNOLA
📻 100.3 FM @ESPNRadioNOLA @SmoothieKing | #WontBowDown pic.twitter.com/WYWjrqTCM8
Two wins in a row and we're on the road in Portland to see if we can make it 3.
The Blazers are basically the inverse of our record, currently sitting at 6th in the West with a record of 22-16.
They're very similar to us in profile, actually; 6th in ORtg and 29th in DRtg, being one of the precious few teams worse on defense than we are. They actually have a slightly worse Net Rating than us, overall; -0.5, whereas ours is +0.6.
Really, the difference between Portland and New Orleans this year is clutch time execution. Simply put, we've been dreadful at it and the Blazers haven't. When we get into super close games we lose, they don't. Much of this comes down to the simple fact that they can put the ball in Lillard's hands and ask him to do things, whereas we've largely been allergic to playing our best player during crunch time minutes.
Tonight, CJ McCollum returns to the Blazers lineup, which means their offense will probably take yet another boost while their defense will take yet another hit; that said, comeback games are often big moments for players so we can't rely on such things.
We'll see what happens. I don't think this one is unwinnable but it will take a big effort from the team and we have very little reason to see them as willing to give that effort yet.