December 30th - New Orleans Pelicans vs Philadelphia 76ers - 22-12
The Pelicans, currently on a 4 game winstreak, look to continue their recent success - a success that has launched them to the top of the West once again - against the Sixers. The Sixers, of course, a team which has a record of 20-13, which is not bad at all. That record includes being 6-8 on the road, which is slightly more pleasant for us to consider as we go into this with yet some more injury report updates:
Larry Nance Jr. was added to the injury report for Friday's game against Philadelphia#Pelicans | @MorrisBartLLC https://t.co/5KBg7gOUgs
— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) December 29, 2022
Yep, Nance is back on the report - this time as doubtful. Herb has been set as questionable. Brandon Ingram remains sidelined with his toe, though he was at practice recently which may be a sign of good things to come.
This will be a tough game, but I also think it's a winnable one. It will rely on us maximising our shooting, speeding the Sixers up (26th in pace this year) and denying them any opportunity to get second chances. The Sixers ahve the 2nd ranked defense but only the 15th offense; if they can't get second chance points or fastbreak opportunities, we should be able to clamp down on a relatively impotent scoring threat.
That word 'relatively' is still, of course, contextual - they do still have Joel Embiid, who can put 40 on any team, and while he's not the same guy he was in Houston there's no real denying that James Harden could have a night at any point. We'll welcome the return of Herb if he's here to team with dyson all night to deny Harden any good looks and prevent him from leveraging his entry passing (very high level) to give opportunities to Embiid, who will probably have to be a team effort to defend.
Let's see whether the team lives up to recent hype, and finishes out the home stand on a 5 consecutive win before we go on the road for a b2b.
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Originally Posted by AusPel
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