Lonzo Ball listed as questionable for tomorrow night?s game: https://t.co/NAPe0XCEh6@SmoothieKing | #Pelicans pic.twitter.com/1g065864PL
— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) January 18, 2021
Lonzo listed as questionable, which is sad.
After breaking our losing streak against Sacramento - while still giving up a ton of points - the Pelicans manage to stabilise the ship ever so slightly, just in time to hit the next whirlpool. The Utah Jazz are currently 9-4, and are top 10 in both O and DRtgs. They are currently on a 5 game winning streak.
I suppose if you're looking for a bright side, it's that the Jazz's winning streak largely comes against the softer opponents in the league. Not quite the softest, of course, but they've beaten the 2-8 Pistons, the 5-7 Cavaliers, the 5-6 Hawks, etc. Of course, we're a 5-7 team ourselves so let's not get arrogant about things, but it's still worth noting that this current record is ever so slightly aided by an easier schedule to start the year.
For us, we've got a lot to deal with. Turnovers cropped up again last game, an on-going problem for us, and while there were some defensive flashes it was overall a poor effort on that end of the floor. The result of this was another slide in our defense: what started the season as a top 5 defense through 5 games has fallen to 18th in the NBA, and our offense overall isn't any better, tying that 18th place position. We are damn near as mediocre as it is possible for a team to be right now.
In my estimation, this game comes down to 1 thing: three point shooting.
Right now, the Pelicans are one of the best interior defenses in the NBA, despite the slide, and we are the best rebounding team point blank. The Jazz, by comparison, match up poorly with that in a sense: they're one of the worst 2pt scoring teams in the league, 28th in 2pt attempts and only 18th in efficiency when they get them.
The issue for us is that the perimeter defense has been poor and by god the Jazz have been hot from 3. They're shooting 39.7% as a team on 40.7 per game, making them number 1 overall in 3pt makes this season so far. Every single member of their starting lineup who isn't Rudy Gobert is shooting at least 38% from 3, on fairly high volume. If they get hot tonight we're going to be immediately buried.
Goes without saying, but we'll need our perimeter defense to really step up tonight; and even then, we'll need a little bit of luck. Surely it's about time they cool off a little?
Let's go out there and try and pick up a W: we play Utah twice here and it would be nice to split the pair and keep us hovering closer to .500