January 24th - New Orleans Pelicans @ Oklahoma City Thunder - 22-26
After a frankly boring loss at Detroit, we move onto the road again to face OKC, this time without AD, Mirotic, or Moore. So that'll be a loss then.
OKC are 29-18 coming into tonight, and possess the league's 16th best offense, but the 4th best defense. They've won three straight, and have won two of those three with ease. Russell Westbrook is doing that thing he does where he averages a triple double but it doesn't mean anything because he shoots 24% from three, steals rebounds from his team-mates, and assist hunts. The one who is really propelling OKC to victories this season is Paul George, who is averaging a career best 27ppg and shooting 39% from three (including something like 45% on catch and shoot threes). Combine that with his high level of defense this season, and it's evident who the head of that snake is. Unfortunately, due to missing basically 60 points per game out of our lineup tonight, we won't have any real chance to capitalise on that.
It's hard to say what we would need to do to win. Jrue would need to go off, Randle would need to go off, Okafor would need to really cut Adams off from offensive boards, the bench would have to be clicking on all cylinders, Payton would need to play with confidence again, and everyone would need to really focus on defense. That's a lot of requirements. Obviously it is POSSIBLE that those things will happen and we'll win, but it's a very long shot. For me, I'm expecting a loss, and a pretty crushing one. I'd love us to win, but it's difficult to see how we could make it happen given everything.
After that cheerful note, I did have a pretty nice bowl of pasta earlier, so that's nice.
#DoItBig
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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae
beautiful
