January 21st - New Orleans Pelicans @ Utah Jazz - 5-8

[Pelicanidae]

Good morning Pels fans, it's #PelicansGameday once again!

🏀 at Utah
🕘 9 p.m. CT
📺 @NBAonTNT/@FOXSportsNOLA
📻 100.3 FM @ESPNRadioNOLA @SmoothieKing | #WontBowDown pic.twitter.com/zV4ytmgykb

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) January 21, 2021

And we're back. Not going to do a big detailed write up here because frankly, it's the same game. Everyone who saw last game knows what's good.

We've seen that the Jazz cannot defend Zion: we should go to him.
We saw that we couldn't hit the broad side of a barn last game deep, and that must be better.
We saw that Utah couldn't miss, and it didn't hurt them that our defensive closeouts were far too slow and reactionary rather than pro-active. That also needs to change.

Overall we need to perform better if we want a win, but that's no surprise: if we didn't have to do anything better from last game, we would have won it.

Utah, take 2. Here we go.

[Taker597]

Looking forward to Zion to getting no calls in the paint against Gobert.

[DroopyDawg]

Has a team ever had to play back-to-back games against the same team in the same road arena? I know things are different this year but sheesh. I guess it helps that we didn't have to travel.

[Freyfamilyreuni]

Or any defensive 3 sec calls against the Jazz. Gobert may as well just climb up and sit on the rim during our offensive possessions.

[6warddude]

Looking forward to Zion to getting no calls in the paint against Gobert.

zion has to man up and take the fine by going off on the refs for his no calls...i dont care if he get ejected for wilding out on the refs for a game but him or his coach has to callout the refs real bad and take the fine for doing it....

zion went to the FT line in the first game harden like and the memo must have come down and said he is too big to be calling fouls on lol....

[6warddude]

start bledsoe and naw and let lonzo come off the bench to play defense would make my night win or loose....

[Pelicanidae]

Has a team ever had to play back-to-back games against the same team in the same road arena? I know things are different this year but sheesh. I guess it helps that we didn't have to travel.

This sort of thing is happening a fair amount this season, if I remember right, exactly for the travel purposes given COVID. The average team is travelling only half the distance they did last season over the first half of the schedule.

For example, Charlotte played Philadelphia two games in a row on the road earlier this year, and Boston are playing Philly twice consecutive in Philadelphia at the moment as well (the second game for that is tomorrow).

[PELICANSFAN]

zion has to man up and take the fine by going off on the refs for his no calls...i dont care if he get ejected for wilding out on the refs for a game but him or his coach has to callout the refs real bad and take the fine for doing it....

zion went to the FT line in the first game harden like and the memo must have come down and said he is too big to be calling fouls on lol....

Time for SVG to get on the refs much harder about it. He is way too passive about it.

[Taker597]

Time for SVG to get on the refs much harder about it. He is way too passive about it.

I don't understand the point of getting on the refs and losing our coach. We've done it multiple times and NBA officials just don't care. NBA refs made it pretty clear that they won't be intimdated and they'll guide outcome of games without any consistency.

Our only option is to outright beat them. Yet, doing so as an elite paint team that needs to get those FT calls to offset 3pt shooting team is one hand tied behind our back game because officials don't want to reward us on most nights. SVG even said during his preseason interview that we want to get physical and get teams to commit shooting fouls. He's doing just that, but trusting officials to uphold their end seems like a bad idea unless you're James Harden.

[Pelicanidae]

The most reliable way for a star to get more foul calls is for it to be pointed out, often by a coach but also by a player. It happens fairly often that, say, Lebron James will speak to the media and say that he feels like he's not getting the foul calls he deserves and then for the next handful of games he gets more. The effect wears off over time, as officials grow to ignore it again, but the temporary jolt of starpower can influence it on the short term.

Is Zion the kind of person who will ever complain? If so, is he a large enough star yet for it to influence official behavior for even one game?

[Taker597]

The most reliable way for a star to get more foul calls is for it to be pointed out, often by a coach but also by a player. It happens fairly often that, say, Lebron James will speak to the media and say that he feels like he's not getting the foul calls he deserves and then for the next handful of games he gets more. The effect wears off over time, as officials grow to ignore it again, but the temporary jolt of starpower can influence it on the short term.

Is Zion the kind of person who will ever complain? If so, is he a large enough star yet for it to influence official behavior for even one game?

At this point, it really has to be Zion taking a fine in a post game confrence to get any heat on the officials. Our coaches getting T up or thrown out of game just doesn't do anything.

[Pelicanidae]

I've never understood why NBA players, particularly ones on large long term deals and with huge endorsements, shy away from the occasional fine.

You're worth $100m+ dude, the fine might be $30k. If you make $10m in a normal 82 game season, that's about $120k a game: that fine is one quarter's worth of salary. And you probably only play 8 minutes of any given quarter at max, so we're literally talking about it costing you 8 minutes or so of play-salary.

Why would that ever deter you? Obviously you can't do it too much cause then you get a reputation and it reflects poorly on you for later contracts or team desirability, you don't want to be a malcontent, but once a season? Cop a fine once a year, it's no big deal.

[As I See It]

I've never understood why NBA players, particularly ones on large long term deals and with huge endorsements, shy away from the occasional fine.

You're worth $100m+ dude, the fine might be $30k. If you make $10m in a normal 82 game season, that's about $120k a game: that fine is one quarter's worth of salary. And you probably only play 8 minutes of any given quarter at max, so we're literally talking about it costing you 8 minutes or so of play-salary.

Why would that ever deter you? Obviously you can't do it too much cause then you get a reputation and it reflects poorly on you for later contracts or team desirability, you don't want to be a malcontent, but once a season? Cop a fine once a year, it's no big deal.

So you endorse/encourage boorish behavior?

[Pelicanidae]

So you endorse/encourage boorish behavior?

I endorse being honest but polite.

I'm not saying Zion should get up on the podium and call an official names, or pick out any individual and insult their appearance or anything. I'm saying if you are being shoved around for 35 minutes a night and getting whistles maybe a quarter of the time, then mentioning in the press conference after the game that you feel like you're being fouled a lot more often than is being called is totally reasonable, and fair of you to do.

The NBA happens to fine people for doing that, which I personally don't think should be the case, but they do. Knowing that, I think it's worth the fine.

If NBA players earned a lot less, or if the fine were much larger, then I wouldn't tell them to do it. But it's a fairly insignificant amount of money for someone earning tens of millions of dollars in a given year, and the actual action you're being fined for is an entirely justifiable one. It's not ''boorish'' to point out when you're being treated unfairly.

[As I See It]

I endorse being honest but polite.

I'm not saying Zion should get up on the podium and call an official names, or pick out any individual and insult their appearance or anything. I'm saying if you are being shoved around for 35 minutes a night and getting whistles maybe a quarter of the time, then mentioning in the press conference after the game that you feel like you're being fouled a lot more often than is being called is totally reasonable, and fair of you to do.

The NBA happens to fine people for doing that, which I personally don't think should be the case, but they do. Knowing that, I think it's worth the fine.

If NBA players earned a lot less, or if the fine were much larger, then I wouldn't tell them to do it. But it's a fairly insignificant amount of money for someone earning tens of millions of dollars in a given year, and the actual action you're being fined for is an entirely justifiable one. It's not ''boorish'' to point out when you're being treated unfairly.

So you you think that player grievances. perceived or otherwise, should be adjudicated in the media and not through the devices agreed upon in the CBA.

Okay.

[Pelicanidae]

So you you think that player grievances. perceived or otherwise, should be adjudicated in the media and not through the devices agreed upon in the CBA.

Okay.

I'll admit, it would be impressive if they could adjudicate non-perceived grievances anywhere.

[Pelicanidae]

Jrue's just giving it to the Lakers right now lmao

11 points in 12 minutes on 5/6 shooting. 1/2 from 3.

His stats on the season: 16/4/5 on 49/39/87 splits (59%TS) in 32 minutes a game. Career high +22 Net Rating, career best 9.2% TOV, career high steal percentage of 2.9%. BPM of +3.5 is his career high and top 30 in the league.

So happy for him that he's doing well.

[Pelicanidae]

SVG in the pregame:

What do you want to change defensively, or we things just need to be done better?

''Well, I mean there's always a little bit of both. We gave up 7 threes in transition the other night. There's no scheme for that, we've got to get back and get matched up. We gave up another 3 on getting broken down off the dribble, and creating help situations where we couldn't get back to the shooter, but we would like to do some things a little bit differently on pick and rolls to try to keep our guys into shorter closeouts and rotations than we have been. So we'll see how that goes.''

There was a bright spot the other night, Zion going against Gobert with another 30 point night. What do you like about that matchup?

''Zion's a great attacker, he can really finish around the basket, we know he's really special in that way and he did a really great job the other night.''

Utah's defense has been great during their winning streak: what has made them so tough?

''Well look, they're one of the few teams that's a top 10 team on both ends of the floor, and I think it goes to their size, their elite defensive centres, with Gobert who has been DPOY and Favors who everybody in New Orleans knows defensively, so they always have an elite centre in the game. Good overall size, and a very smart experienced team. These guys have been together and they've been at it a long time: Conley's very experienced, Joe Ingles an experienced guy, Royce O'Neale's been at it a while. So these guys are experienced, smart, tough, and extremely well coached. Quin does as good a job as anybody in this league.''

The other night you mentioned 1v1 defense: how much of that is a point of emphasis tonight?

''Let's not, as I say to the players all the time, this is truly a group effort and so we do have to alter schemes as necessary to give them a better chance and we continue to try to do that. But then they've got to do a better more determined job individually. If we put those things together, then we've got a chance to be good.''

We ask a lot about the 3s you give up on defense: how do you feel about the 3s you're taking?

''Well look, y'know, we're playing most of the game with 3 perimeters so the number of 3s, in a perfect world, would I love to see it go up? yes I would. But y'know when a lot of teams are putting 4 or 5 shooters out there and you're going with 3, you're not going to get that number of attempts. It's about the quality of the 3s we get and the ability to knock them down, and so it's sort of a mixed bag right now. Would we like to take more of them? Yeah, but not when you're shooting 6/26. So we've got to shoot them better. The other night, I thought the quality of the ones we had was great, I mean, we had some wide open ones that we just missed and I think we have some guys struggling with confidence a little bit right now and it's sort of all gone together and we'll hopefully put a few games together where we knock them down and play more freely in that regard.''

[13 - 3]

Starting Lonzo again? We must be tanking

[13 - 3]

Omg he made a 3

[Funcrusher]

lmao refs are hosing us already

[Pelicanidae]

Who on Earth did Lonzo think that was a pass to? There was nowhere within about 5 feet of where the ball ended up.

[13 - 3]

Zion back to doing those crazy falls again. Griffs balance specialist failed

[Pelicanidae]

Zion from 333333333

[13 - 3]

Geez Adams