April 28th - New Orleans Pelicans @ Denver Nuggets - 27-34

[Pelicanidae]

The first #PelicansGameday of our three-game road trip begins tonight ⛰️

🏀 at Denver
🕗 8 p.m. CT
📺 @BallySportsNO
📻 100.3 FM @ESPNRadioNOLA @SmoothieKing | #WontBowDown pic.twitter.com/A1zsEWEJ6V

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) April 28, 2021

Tonight we're on the road as we take on the 40-21 Denver Nuggets.

3rd in offense and 14th in defense this year, the Nuggets are 18-6 since the All-Star break and have won 6 of their last 7. Jokic has continued being the clear and evident MVP despite the loss of Jamal Murray, and Michael Porter Jr has been absolute flames, shooting 54.4% from 3 on about 8 attempts per game over the last 2 weeks.

There are a bunch of questions about how we're going to handle this game. Who gets the end-bench minutes? It's a back to back, do we see any minutes limits? How do we try to approach Jokic? All of these and more will be interesting narratives to follow in a game that I don't think many people expect us to have much of a chance to win. That said, we do sometimes play up to competition so it will be intriguing to see which version of the Pels shows up tonight.

Let's see what happens.

[Eman5805]

Do we see Didi tonight? Or at all this season?

[ragincaucasian]

Important Dates:

NBA Draft 2021 presented by State Farm will take place on Thursday, July 29, beginning at 8 p.m. ET. The first round will be televised by ESPN and ABC, and the second round will air on ESPN.

The NBA also announced additional key dates relating to NBA Draft 2021 presented by State Farm:

> NBA Draft Combine: Subject to evolving public health conditions, Microsoft Surface NBA Draft Combine 2021 is scheduled to take place Monday, June 21 through Sunday, June 27. ESPN networks plan to televise the NBA Draft Combine, with coverage featuring five-on-five games and strength and agility testing.

> NBA Draft Lottery: NBA Draft Lottery 2021 presented by State Farm will take place on Tuesday, June 22, airing on ESPN at 8:30 p.m. ET.

> NBA Early Entry Application and Withdrawal Deadlines: The deadline for an early entry player to apply for this years NBA Draft is Sunday, May 30 at 11:59 p.m. ET. The deadline for an early entry player to withdraw from the NBA Draft is Monday, July 19 at 5 p.m. ET.

Current Draft Standing: Tied for 10th Pick http://www.tankathon.com/

[Pelicanidae]

My guess is *maybe* but don't bet on it.

[AUSSIE_PELICAN]

Do we see Didi tonight? Or at all this season?

Hopefully it's a blowout and we see him play.

[MichaelMcNamara]

Hopefully it's a blowout and we see him play.

I dont think he will even be with them on this road trip. And they have no desire to play him this year. Maybe if we shut everyone down the final week, but he wasnt brought over to play this year

[Pelicanidae]

Van Gundy says that once Louzada is able to play in games, he's not sure how or when Didi will be worked in because of the deep rotation ahead of him.

It sounds like Didi may make only an appearance or two in the final handful of games on the schedule. He's a long-term addition.

— Oleh Kosel (@OlehKosel) April 28, 2021

Shamit Dua also mentions that he has to clear up stuff with his work VISA, though I do not know how accurate that is or whether it's just conjecture.

[As I See It]

Three great Defensive Plays in the first 1:40 by Zion (Tongue in Cheek).

[As I See It]

Three great Defensive Plays in the first 1:40 by Zion (Tongue in Cheek).

Make that four in the first 2:15.

What's Aaron Gordon's career high; he already has eight.

[Funcrusher]

Someone's got to tell Zion to start elevating on his contests, he's ironically way too floorbound/flatfooted defensively and teams are exploiting it with guys who can just shoot over him.

[Pelicanidae]

10 guys have touched the floor in the first quarter. I don't know if that's just me being generally delirious from the flu or isn't that earlier than usual for us to get that many guys on the floor? Idk

[As I See It]

dae, you still think he's improved defensively?

[Pelicanidae]

Little bit disappointed by Zion's lack of rebounding this game and last. Obviously a lot of game left to play, but 0 boards so far is irritating. We know he's not asked to be a defensive glass crasher but he averages 7 for a reason: offensive boards and opportunistic D boards. The fact that he has none so far tonight and very few last game is annoying.

I wonder if it's part of that revved up every-other-day-season thing? Want to see a bit more.

[RobertM320]

Down by 9 at half, lucky we're not down by 20. I've seen high school teams take care of the ball better than the Pels have tonight.

[As I See It]

STARTER STATS - HALFTIME

Ingram: 14/4/4
Zion: 10/0/0
Lonzo: 8/5/6
Bledsoe: 6/2/1
Adams: 2/1/2

[MichaelMcNamara]

Little bit disappointed by Zion's lack of rebounding this game and last. Obviously a lot of game left to play, but 0 boards so far is irritating. We know he's not asked to be a defensive glass crasher but he averages 7 for a reason: offensive boards and opportunistic D boards. The fact that he has none so far tonight and very few last game is annoying.

I wonder if it's part of that revved up every-other-day-season thing? Want to see a bit more.

Zion averages 5 defensive boards per 36. Its who he is and its not because of scheme or the coaches telling him not too. Its not because we have rebounding monsters on our team, especially now that Hart is gone. For comparison, the Bulls have 17 players averaging more defensive rebounds per 36 than Zion. Most teams have between 8-12.

He basically rebounds as much as an average guard. Not a good rebounding guard, an average one. And we can make excuses and pretend it could be different if the scheme changed but its not true. Its who he is

[Eman5805]

Yeah. It’s just not a priority for him.

[As I See It]

Yeah. It’s just not a priority for him.

....and defense?

[Pelicanidae]

Yeah. It’s just not a priority for him.

Yes but there is a distinct difference between something being a priority and something just not happening whatsoever at all.

Is rebounding normally Zion's focus, something he puts he bets his name on? No.

Is it something he still normally does a lot better than he has tonight? Yes.

Also as a side note to Mac: you are correct that Zion isn't an outstanding rebounder in general, but you do him a massive disservice by specifically focusing only on defensive rebounds. Everyone who watches the game knows that a large amount of Zion's rebounding damage is done on the offensive glass, where he ranks 25th in the entire league in OREB%. Higher than Joel Embiid, KAT, Bam Adebayo, Domantas Sabonis, etc.

Once you combine DREB% and OREB%, Zion ranks about 47th in the NBA in REB%, which is not outstanding but is far higher than the idea that every team has six or seven guys better would imply.

[As I See It]

Zion averages 5 defensive boards per 36. Its who he is and its not because of scheme or the coaches telling him not too. Its not because we have rebounding monsters on our team, especially now that Hart is gone. For comparison, the Bulls have 17 players averaging more defensive rebounds per 36 than Zion. Most teams have between 8-12.

He basically rebounds as much as an average guard. Not a good rebounding guard, an average one. And we can make excuses and pretend it could be different if the scheme changed but its not true. Its who he is

BY COMPARISON

Barkley averaged 11.7 for a career.
Malone averaged 10.1 for a career
Randle has averaged 9.2 in his career.
Giannis has averaged 9.1 in his career

[Pelicanidae]

6-17 from 3 for 35.3% and this is so far a good night for us.

We suck so bad at shooting it's absurd.

[Pelicanidae]

Jokic is up to 23/6/5 on better than 50% shooting in 24 minutes and has not had to work hard for any of it.

[MichaelMcNamara]

I never said he was a bad rebounder. I said he was a bad defensive rebounder. Just like I never said he is a bad offensive player. I said he is a bad defensive player

What does it matter how good of an offensive rebounder he is? If anything, that just proves that the defensive end is all lack of effort. If he tried half as hard on defense as he does on offense, he might not be a huge net negative on that end

[Pelicanidae]

I never said he was a bad rebounder. I said he was a bad defensive rebounder. Just like I never said he is a bad offensive player. I said he is a bad defensive player

What does it matter how good of an offensive rebounder he is? If anything, that just proves that the defensive end is all lack of effort. If he tried half as hard on defense as he does on offense, he might not be a huge net negative on that end

Yes but the conversation was about rebounding, just generally. So when the conversation is on rebounding and you come in like ''AHA but he IS a bad *defensive* rebounder, in fact he's just like a guard, in fact every team has 6 or 7 guys better than him!'' it comes across as either you missing the point of the discussion or you attempting to be intentionally misleading.

I don't know whether to give you the credit of assuming the former, in which you're at least honest if just oblivious, or lean in to your usual persona and expect the latter.

The original point is that I expect a higher number than 0 in the REB column. Which I do, because his usual performances are better than this.

[MichaelMcNamara]

Yes but the conversation was about rebounding, just generally. So when the conversation is on rebounding and you come in like ''AHA but he IS a bad *defensive* rebounder, in fact he's just like a guard, in fact every team has 6 or 7 guys better than him!'' it comes across as either you missing the point of the discussion or you attempting to be intentionally misleading.

I don't know whether to give you the credit of assuming the former, in which you're at least honest if just oblivious, or lean in to your usual persona and expect the latter.

The original point is that I expect a higher number than 0 in the REB column. Which I do, because his usual performances are better than this.

So since you intended one thing for the conversation, we have to discuss that and only that and can't make our own points? I didnt even quote you in my post. Just talked about his lack of defensive rebounding.

I will try to stick to your parameters moving forward. We know it is all about you on here.