May 1st - New Orleans Pelicans @ Minnesota Timberwolves - 28-35

[Pelicanidae]

Gorgeous play, Lonzo to Ingram to Jax on a lop in transition

[AusPel]

This will be overturned

BI thinking he's Tatum out there

[Pelicanidae]

This will be overturned

BI thinking he's Tatum out there

It's weird cause BI did the thing where he whips his head back to imply contact but then fell over forward to sell it, it was just odd immediately.

[Pelicanidae]

Halftime: score's tied at 65-65

Zion: 16pts, 7rbds, 1ast, 1stl on 71.4%FG
Ingram: 6pts, 3rds, 4asts, 1stl on 28.5%FG (2/4 from 3)
Lonzo: 13pts, 4rbds, 4asts, 2stls on 45.5%FG (3/8 from 3)

[AusPel]

Is it just me or is KAT severly overrated

[Pelicanidae]

Is it just me or is KAT severly overrated

Depends I guess. I have him as a top 20 player but not top 10, where do you put him?

[As I See It]

I think that's massively overstating it to be honest.

Zion's far from great on defense but he's far better now than he was at the start of the year. He's been solid so far most of tonight. He's not even the worst defender among our starting forwards, and there are people on this site who barely talk about him other than to imply he's the worst defender in the league.

That's born out in the stats too: EPM has him at basically +0.00 on defense (so exactly neutral), and both RAPTOR and BPM have him as slight negatives.

Interestingly enough, I rarely see this level of ''but what about the defense'' for guys like Damian Lillard who is legitimately one of the worst defenders in basketball.

Wouldn't trade him for the world, but he's is the worst defensive power forward in the league and that includes Love, Kleber, McDermont, and Randle.

[Pelicanidae]

All Zion early in the 3rd

3 minutes in he has 5pts on 2/2 shooting, a rebound, 3 assists, and a block

[AusPel]

Ok props to Zion for that defensive play. Slid his feet and got the block

[Pelicanidae]

Really strong shooting night for Lonzo

[Pelicanidae]

KAT is the best shooting center in history

— Shamit Dua (@FearTheBrown) May 2, 2021

Yeah

[Pelicanidae]

KAT over the last 5 years:

This year: 39.2% from 3 on 260 attempts
Last year: 41.2% from 3 on 277 attempts
18-19: 40.0% from 3 on 355 attempts
17-18: 42.1% from 3 on 285 attempts
16-17: 36.7% from 3 on 275 attempts

Just absurd shooting for a big.

There have been 7 seasons in NBA history where a C has shot at least 40% from 3 on at least 250 attempts, and KAT has 3 of them - and is close to having a 4th straight this year. Nobody else has more than 2.

[Pelicanidae]

Lonzo's career high from 3 is 8 by the way, he has 7.

[DaFranchise80]

Lonzo is feeling it tonight.

[DaFranchise80]

These refs are getting on my nerves right now.

[Pelicanidae]

Such a rough shooting night for Ingram. If he had been able to give us almost anything we'd be in a comfy lead.

[Chavan30]

OK, you guys convinced me. Shut this garbage team down, tank, and get more ping pong balls. Funny thing is we have already won the lottery and this is what we get...........

[DaFranchise80]

Bledsoe is singlehandedly sabotaging this game.

[JJackisangry]

We just don’t have an answer. We are cooked

[Pelicanidae]

So much has gone wrong tonight man

Zion: great, efficient scoring, good rebounding, mostly solid defense, but 6 missed FTs and a ton of turnovers isn't good.
Ingram: Really awful shooting night, two straight turnovers out of timeouts, awful defense
Bledsoe: Nothing, just nothing really at all, as usual. Sucks. Gives you nothing 90% of the time, and of course a timely late turnover.

Edit: even Lonzo, who is having a career night shooting (tied his career high in made 3s) has been lousy on defense much of the time and has 5 turnovers

[Chavan30]

Missed layups, missed free throws, turn overs, lack of concern, bad coaching, lack of concentration. Same Pelicans team no matter who we draft. Dumbest team that refuses to play hard for 48 minutes.
Funny thing is getting a high draft pick this year fixes all of this?

[Pelicanidae]

Missed layups, missed free throws, turn overs, lack of concern, bad coaching, lack of concentration. Same Pelicans team no matter who we draft. Dumbest team that refuses to play hard for 48 minutes.
Funny thing is getting a high draft pick this year fixes all of this?

The team just needs talent.

Missed layups, missed free throws, turnovers; these suck, but you expect them from a team that's this young, especially when there's no veteran ''head of the snake'' to manage it all. Those things will improve in time, or at least, it would be weird if they didn't.

What we do need is just more talent. Right now we have Zion and Ingram and about 4 games out of 10, we get a good Lonzo as well. Right now, that's where the real NBA talent on this roster stops.

Again, some of those players like Jax and Kira, we hope will age into being real NBA guys with experience, and they probably will. But right now they're not that, so we suck.

No, getting a good draft pick this year will not ''fix'' all of this, but you don't draft rookies expecting them to fix these things, you draft them expecting them to in time be able to grow out of them. Different story.

[Chavan30]

But haven’t we heard this so many times before? In time? I am not trying to argue with you, but when does “ in time” turn into “time is now”?

[JJackisangry]

This is mainly why I’m against making play-ins at this point. It is absolutely clear what we lack (and have been lacking for most of the season). Get the best 3&D-wing/combo-forward you can find in the draft and find a good short term signing or two that can bring the spacing we desperately need next to B and Z. Just bring in actual shooters. Not the “might be okay someday” guys. We have enough potential.

[Pelicanidae]

Just had a look at what's going on in some of the other games and my head hurts.

Indiana scored 152 on the Thunder in regulation?! Sabonis had 26/19/14 lmao