Hoopin' in San Antonio!
— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) December 17, 2023
🏀: vs Spurs
🕕: 2:30 pm CT
📺: @BallySportsNO
📻: @995WRNO#Pelicans | @SmoothieKing pic.twitter.com/PCx6UmVeRj
Early game tonight, which makes a nice change.
This is one that's a bit strange. On paper, it should absolutely be a win - Spurs are 4-20 right now. Wembanyama has been consistently good defensively but he's struggled scoring lately, shooting under 40% from the floor in 3 of his last 5 games. The Spurs are a bottom 6 team defensively, and 29th in the NBA offensively. They have no real consistent guard rotation, it's kind of a mess there.
They suck.
On the other hand, the Pels - despite two good wins recently - have generally struggled against teams that suck, and Wembanyama's combination of extreme height and rim protection looks like it could make things somewhat difficult for us, given that we thrive so much on getting to the rim; whether it's Zion, JV, Herb, BI, the Pelicans get to the rim as frequently as the top teams in the NBA, whereas our 3 point shooting has been somewhat inconsistent at times. How will we fare against a team that co-ordinates specifically to maximise their excellent rim protection?
Now, there are ways to mitigate it. One is cutting and off-ball motion, another is running heavy shooting lineups, and a third is by focusing hard on the paint in minutes where Wemby is sitting. But all of those are dependent on what the other team does, so it's interesting.
All in all, we should still win this game. Spurs are bad, Wemby is incredible but he's not perfect, and we have a very good roster overall. The team needs to go in with the mindset they had when they beat the Wolves recently, another defense driven by a large French rim protector, and dominate. Cannot afford to take it easy just because they're bad: we lose when we do that.
Let's go!