January 19th - New Orleans Pelicans @ Utah Jazz - 5-7

[Pelicanidae]

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

[Taker597]

Lonzo in practice interview said that he is playing tonight.

[PeliKhan]

Hopefully Lonzo is on some minutes restrictions, let Naw and Bled start

[6warddude]

im not looking forward to the jazz shooting and possibly making a record number of 3s tonight from the way our defense is set up....those boys are coming into the game hot...

[PelsBeliever]

Don’t match up well at all tonight but, hoping Jazz cool down from behind the arc.

[Taker597]

Out of all players who have defended 175 shot attempts or more this year, Andrew Wiggins has a league best 40% DFG percentage. He’s also tied for 5th in the league in total contested threes so far. Opponents are shooting 30% on those contests.


Might have to retire Weedplate Wiggins Mockery.

Replace by his new worst starter in James Wiseman

James Naww-Man.


Ehhhh... 4/10. Work in progress.

[Funcrusher]

im not looking forward to the jazz shooting and possibly making a record number of 3s tonight from the way our defense is set up....those boys are coming into the game hot...

Hopefully Stan adjusts the defensive philosophy a bit to account for that. I'm sure it's on the scouting report that the Jazz are a 3-heavy team.

[6warddude]

Hopefully Stan adjusts the defensive philosophy a bit to account for that. I'm sure it's on the scouting report that the Jazz are a 3-heavy team.

adjusting defensive philosophy tonight may be the different from getting beat by 20+ because of open 3s to us having a close game to pull it out....stan is old school ,,live and die by your beliefs ..

so here is to hoping that the jazz 3s dont fall...

[Pelicanidae]

There's an interesting statistical note about our defense which is that the discrepancy between our ''open'' 3s and our ''wide open'' 3s has been huge.

Teams shoot 31.6% from 3 against us on ''open'' threes: those are ones where there's no defender within 6 feet. Opponents are getting 14 of those a game, or so.
But they shoot 40.5% from 3 against us on ''wide open'' threes: those are ones where there's no defender within more than 6 feet. And they're getting 25 of those a game.

So that tells us that actually, the pack-the-paint/late closeout strategy is working to an extent: when we execute it properly. But there's a difference between a late closeout to worry the shooter, and just not bothering to close out at all, and that's what we're doing way more often. If we can tilt that balance just slightly so that instead of 14 open/25 wide open threes per game, the opponent gets fewer than 20 wide open threes per night and we can contest those 5 or 6 shots just a little better, then our O3P% would look a lot less brutal, and our defense would be far more effective.

Which is all a fancy way of saying that we need to be get more disciplined on closing out on the perimeter, which isn't news to anyone, but it's nice to have the statistical evidence to back it up.

[luckyman]

I think folks are taking Pelicans defensive philosophy to the extreme.

It's not as if they just don't care if teams shoot 3s uncontested wide open. They want to be in position to contest every shot.

They just aren't willing to degrade the defense by hard hedging, trapping, blitzing every PnR coverage all game long. They might only do that situationally like end of the game or if one player is just scorching them.

And the closeouts have gotten better lately. They dont go running out there and jumping at every pump fake like headless chickens as much as they used to. Now it's just a case of over helping and leaving good 3 pt shooters too much space.

[Pelicanidae]

I think folks are taking Pelicans defensive philosophy to the extreme.

It's not as if they just don't care if teams shoot 3s uncontested wide open. They want to be in position to contest every shot.

They just aren't willing to degrade the defense by hard hedging, trapping, blitzing every PnR coverage all game long. They might only do that situationally like end of the game or if one player is just scorching them.

And the closeouts have gotten better lately. They dont go running out there and jumping at every pump fake like headless chickens as much as they used to. Now it's just a case of over helping and leaving good 3 pt shooters too much space.

The philosophy itself is sound. We know that when you have the right personnel and the right discipline, it works. It's the same defensive framework that led the Bucks to the league's best defense last season: it can work.

We just haven't executed it properly yet. There have been flashes, but as you say, we leave the good shooters too much space: that is, we don't close out as effectively as we need to, when we need to. That has to improve. I don't really think anyone denies that. But, the principle itself is a sound one.

[As I See It]

Have the Starters been announced, yet?

[donato]

Lonzo-Bledsoe-Ingram-Zion-Adams

[AusPel]

Frick sake

[Pelicanidae]

Lonzo-Bledsoe-Ingram-Zion-Adams

Sigh.

Not surprising, but disappointed.

Ready for Lonzo to go 2/9 from 3 and go entire quarters with zero impact and then have everyone on Twitter go mental when someone suggests he wasn't great.

[As I See It]

Poll: Barring injury, who will be first off the bench?

[6warddude]

Lonzo-Bledsoe-Ingram-Zion-Adams

unbelievable...NAW should be the SG...dont care if lonzo or bledsoe start next to him...

im just going to put it in my head that we are showcasing lonzo...

[luckyman]

Yeah I think I'll cook me up something instead. Just plain stupid.

But..clicks and eyeballs are more important I guess. The Lonzo hoard will be happy.

[Eman5805]

Great...Lonzo. I'm sure he's ready to not suck attacking the basket...

[donato]

He's on a minutes restriction.

[Pelicanidae]

I'm looking forward to seeing how we use Zion tonight. He's had more on ball responsibilities the last few games and it's been largely positive to see.

In the one game he played in the regular season against Utah last season, he had 13 points in 15 minutes on 6/8 shooting, and in the pre-season game against Utah he dropped 26 points on 9/12 shooting. So let's hope that kind of efficiency shows up again.

[Pelicanidae]

First look of the game, what do we get?

Ingram midranger. Gotcha.

[Pelifan]

Wow I hate this team on both sides of the ball.

This is really bad basketball.

[Pelicanidae]

We've now run that exact action twice already, where Zion curls off the screen into the paint and dishes off to Lonzo on the right of the arc, and both times Lonzo's clanked it.

[sterlr]

Why is Lonzo shooting? Teams are leaving him wide open for a reason. We're playing 4 on 5 on the offensive end.