November 17th - New Orleans Pelicans @ Miami Heat - 2-13

[Pelicanidae]

Game day in South Beach 🏝

🏀: vs Miami
🕡: 6:30pm CST
📺: @BallySportsNO
📻: @ESPNRadioNOLA #Pelicans | @SmoothieKing pic.twitter.com/2fGtrxFNpG

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) November 17, 2021

Having come within a minute or two of winning game 3 last time out, only to be dashed at the final hurdle by almost 6 minutes of excruciatingly bad team offense, we now find ourselves taking on the Miami Heat.

The Heat are currently 9-5, having started the season super strong at 6-1. As you can tell from those numbers, however, they've gone 3-4 over their last 7 which might seem encouraging that they are perhaps going through some struggles. There is some truth in this, they certainly haven't been playing at their best for a few games now, but those losses were also against very good teams for the most part - Clippers and Utah, for example, who are both also 9-5. When it comes to how Miami have played against terrible teams, the answer is: quite well. They played OKC the other day and beat them by double digits.

All of this is expected; Miami have a top 10 defense and a top ten offense, which generally leads towards a lot of winning. They lead the league in rebounding, are top 10 in assists, and are top 3 in the league in both FTAs and FT%. Overall, they're a good team bordering on a great team, and we are always going to struggle against that, especially when we're still missing players.

One potential bright spot for us is the injury report. While we're still missing Daulton Hommes and Zion Williamson, the Heat have a number of big names on the report listed as questionable or out, including guys who missed their last game.

- Jimmy Butler (questionable, missed last game)
- Bam Adebayo (questionable, missed last game)
- Dewayne Dedmon (questionable)
- Marcus Garrett (questionable)
- Markieff Morris (out)
- Victor Oladipo (out)

While it's true that several of those names could easily return, our best hope of victory is if they don't. Please take the time to rest up responsibly, Bam and Butler.

Let's see how we do.

[Darkhorse985]

Herb Jones needs to be our starting SF for the rest of the year. He is a better player than NAW or Hart.

Our lineup without ZIon should be

PG: Graham/Satoransky — Alvarado is the 2nd best PG on this team, but no one cares
SG: NAW/Murphy
SF: Jones/Temple
PF: Ingram/Hart
C: JV/Hayes- Hernangomez is the 2nd best center on this team, but no one cares

With Zion:

PG: Graham/NAW
SG: Ingram/Murphy
SF: Jones/Temple
PF: Zion/Hart
C: JV/Hayes

[Pelicanidae]

Tonight vs. Pelicans:
Kyle Lowry (out) rest.
Bam Adebayo (out) knee.
Markieff Morris (out) neck.
Victor Oladipo (out) knee.
Jimmy Butler, Dewayne Dedmon, Marcus Garrett all upgraded to available,

— Ira Winderman (@IraHeatBeat) November 17, 2021

Butler and Dedmon upgraded to in, but Bam confirmed to be out and Kyle Lowry added to the list of missing persons.

[AusPel]

I hope Kyle has a nice ole rest

First day of school Monday, he'll need his sleep

[msusousaphone]

Hope they minute restrict returning injured players like we do.

[Pelicanidae]

Hope they minute restrict returning injured players like we do.

Speaking of this, Green said in the pre-game stuff that BI is off the minutes restriction, which is good.

[msusousaphone]

Yay.

Herb Jones needs to be our starting SF for the rest of the year. He is a better player than NAW or Hart.

Our lineup without ZIon should be

PG: Graham/Satoransky — Alvarado is the 2nd best PG on this team, but no one cares
SG: NAW/Murphy
SF: Jones/Temple
PF: Ingram/Hart
C: JV/Hayes- Hernangomez is the 2nd best center on this team, but no one cares

With Zion:

PG: Graham/NAW
SG: Ingram/Murphy
SF: Jones/Temple
PF: Zion/Hart
C: JV/Hayes

Totally agree....and honestly.....that's an above .500 lineup for this season, IMO, and the core of a championship contending lineup in two to three seasons (assuming everyone stays healthy, Jones and Murphy keep getting better, and we replace anyone we lose (like Hart or JV) with equal talent).

I'm pumped for this franchise. Even Graham is playing great if you consider him just being a piece alongside Zion and BI as opposed to being forced to be a go to player in their absence. So far, it's looking like Griff absolutely nailed the draft and even FA, this offseason.

[msusousaphone]

Graham really has that clutch magic. They need to let him loose to end games.

[AusPel]

Old bail out Graham

[msusousaphone]

If we can build up a 40pt lead, they might not be able to blow that.

[AusPel]

NAW hitting early

[Pelicanidae]

Nickeil Alexander Scorer

[AusPel]

Such a confidence player

[Pelicanidae]

Good early minutes from Herb and Jax, nice to see.

[ragincaucasian]

I like the YOLO attitude this game, and Ingram realizing that he is not shooting well so he is passing much better.

[AusPel]

We ridin sons

[Pelicanidae]

We ridin sons

Frankly, with no Lowry, no Adebayo, no Morris, this should be a Pels win. Butler is the best player in the game but their bench at this point looks even worse than ours.

[AusPel]

Yup. NAW can go from hot to ice cold in a blink of an eye

Impressive

[AusPel]

Wait, Wade's name is spelt Dwyane not Dwayne?

[6warddude]

herb have some good hands..he get a couple of steals look like every game....herb is our 1st round pick...

[Pelicanidae]

Wait, Wade's name is spelt Dwyane not Dwayne?

Always has been. Always has been.

Edit: weird though, I acknowledge.

[Pelicanidae]

This game has become Slow

[6warddude]

we are in the bonus and we are shooting instead of attacking...put jonas back in to draw fouls and go to the line..

[DarkHornet]

It's so painful to watch the offense struggle for huge stretches at a time.

[AussieHornet]

I dont get these guys sometimes. They have played basketball all their lives yet make really poor decisions constantly. Devonte likes to try difficult passes instead of the better option and chucks up ill advised 3's when the team is having a scoring drought. Why do we keep ignoring Big V when we arent scoring? Frustrating team, buy ya'll know that.