February 9th - New Orleans Pelicans VS Houston Rockets - 10-12

[Pelicanidae]

Josh Hart listed as questionable for tomorrow night's game vs. Houston

Full injury report: https://t.co/BXgxknYL5X@SmoothieKing pic.twitter.com/QKUO02XUTH

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) February 8, 2021

After a 3 game win-streak, we now take on the Houston Rockets. They're on the second night of a back to back in which they lost the first game, and Christian Wood won't be playing. Nor is Victor Oladipo. Meanwhile, we've had a few days to rest up a bit and the momentum is on our side.

This should, in all fairness, be our game to win.

Josh Hart is questionable, according to our own injury report, with lower back spasms; whether he plays or not is likely to be a fairly late decision. Losing him would be a bit damaging because he contributes a lot to our rebounding particularly off the bench, but I don't really think that the victory hinges on him playing or not. Really, this game should come down to this: the Rockets are missing two of their three best players, we aren't.

With any luck we can put this one away fairly early to give guys like Zion and Ingram some rest ready for tomorrow; we have our own b2b going on right now. Inching ever closer to .500 again, this stretch is vital for any kind of playoff hopes we may want.

Not going to list Houston's season stats as without Wood and Oladipo they're not really that representative of the team we'll be playing. Suffice it to say that they're 11-12, having lost 3 of their last 4, but having already beaten us once this season a little while ago. Revenge win time.

[luckyman]

Wall and Puddin sat out last night's game so they'll be rested. But don't know if Cousins will play, so both he and Oladipo might be out.

No Cousins or Wood should leave Houston soft in the middle, but as always, Pelicans have a habit of sleep walking while the opposing team is scrapping for every inch on the floor.

[Pelicanidae]

Wall and Puddin sat out last night's game so they'll be rested. But don't know if Cousins will play, so both he and Oladipo might be out.

No Cousins or Wood should leave Houston soft in the middle, but as always, Pelicans have a habit of sleep walking while the opposing team is scrapping for every inch on the floor.

Cousins was confirmed to be a go, but it's also true that he has stunk hard all year long so as long as we don't give him the game it shouldn't be too big of a deal.

Cousins' numbers this year: 9/7/2 on 36/33/72 splits; shooting only 39.2% from 2 despite being nearly 7 feet tall. TS% of 48.8%, only shooting 45.1% at the rim for God's sake. Offensively, he's just been awful.

Where he's actually been surprisingly decent is defensively, but given that Zion has had very little issue putting the numbers on Myles Turner, Rudy Gobert, and Anthony Davis, I'm not massively worried about Cousins.

[6warddude]

we win this game,, we are in the playoffs...i think lol....pelicans life is good..

[6warddude]

Pelicans have a habit of sleep walking while the opposing team is scrapping for every inch on the floor.

yes but that was the old pelicans...the new pelicans have learned their lesson the hard way and i believe they have grown from that and will come out tonight and make another statement by winning on national tv again then start putting the hammer down on teams since we will be in the playoffs seeding now.......like ingram said,,he dont intent on missing the playoffs again......

zion, ingram and adams are not having that sleep walking crap again...i hope not lol....

[PaKwAn]

As always, defend the 3 point shot... houston might not be that good but they can hit the 3 ball good once they get going...any team that can shoot from the outside will always have a chance against us.

[Taker597]

We aren't coming in gassed. So, I'm pretty confident.

[Pelicanidae]

As always, defend the 3 point shot... houston might not be that good but they can hit the 3 ball good once they get going...any team that can shoot from the outside will always have a chance against us.

Houston are 18th in 3pt% this year.

They take a lot of them, of course (4th most attempts in the league) so you still have to be wary, but this is not a team that is hitting 17 threes a night anymore. Christian Wood is their best 3pt shooter by percentage (42.1%) and he's out. Of their 5 highest minute getters this year, only two shoot better than 36% from 3 and one of them is Wood who isn't playing.

The shooters to be concerned about tonight are Mason Jones (who I liked a fair bit in college, I can't remember where I had him in the draft- between 20 and 35 I think?) who is efficient but has been fairly low volume thus far, and Sterling Brown who has been a really nice shooter this year for them on decent volume as a bench guy. Stifle them and we'll be alright.

Of course, we are the Pelicans so there's also every chance that tonight everyone decides to just become a deadeye.

[PaKwAn]

Houston are 18th in 3pt% this year.

They take a lot of them, of course (4th most attempts in the league) so you still have to be wary, but this is not a team that is hitting 17 threes a night anymore. Christian Wood is their best 3pt shooter by percentage (42.1%) and he's out. Of their 5 highest minute getters this year, only two shoot better than 36% from 3 and one of them is Wood who isn't playing.

The shooters to be concerned about tonight are Mason Jones (who I liked a fair bit in college, I can't remember where I had him in the draft- between 20 and 35 I think?) who is efficient but has been fairly low volume thus far, and Sterling Brown who has been a really nice shooter this year for them on decent volume as a bench guy. Stifle them and we'll be alright.

Of course, we are the Pelicans so there's also every chance that tonight everyone decides to just become a deadeye.

Haven't followed them much but the game i saw them play was the game where they had a franchise record in made three's, i was like damn everyone is hitting a 3 point shot albeit they all had there key guys playing that game... i know Cuz and gordon were hot from deep that day...

[pelafanatic]

I want to see NAW get some more extended run tonight, specifically next to BI. We have a back to back with the second leg being on the road in Chicago tomorrow night, so SVG should run a 10 man rotation (if Hart is in).

I doubt anyone will do a true NAW write up because the trade ideas just get too many clicks, understandably; but NAW has made some legitimate strides this season from inside the arc, specifically within the restricted area.
His compared splits from the past 2 seasons:
2020 v. 2021
Restricted area: 46.2% 51.8%
Paint: 30.6% 47.4%
Mid Range: 26.3% 52.4%
C&S Three: 40.2% 26.2%
Pull Up Three: 23.1% 31.3%

He consistently gets into the paint and has the ability to finish plays when he gets there. Basically, he has improved in every single aspect of his game other than a 14% dip in C&S 3s. This tells me that his shooting woes are almost entirely a confidence issue. If you talk to anyone within the organization, they believe he's an elite shooter as well. We praise Vinson at every turn, so its about time he works his magic with NAW.

If NAW returned to just that 40.2% from last year, we'd be looking at splits of 45/38/77 and having an extremely different conversations. Given the small sample size, this is only a difference of 9 total made 3s, so it's completely realistic. People will say remove the LAC game and his numbers look worse, and that's fine. My counter would be that the LAC game and following LAL game were two of his three starts in which he wasn't forced to be a PG in a crappy bench unit.

This was a long-winded way of saying I hope to see NAW back in the rotation tonight.

[As I See It]

This was a long-winded way of saying I hope to see NAW back in the rotation tonight.

Fine, but not to the detriment of Kira Lewis' playing time.

[pelafanatic]

Fine, but not to the detriment of Kira Lewis' playing time.

No arguments

[PELICANSFAN]

Yikes!

New Orleans has dropped their last 9 games with Zach Zarba officiating https://t.co/SUSod3CsRw

— NBA Ref Stats (@NBARefStats) February 9, 2021

[6warddude]

Yikes!

New Orleans has dropped their last 9 games with Zach Zarba officiating https://t.co/SUSod3CsRw

— NBA Ref Stats (@NBARefStats) February 9, 2021

meaning zion is getting 5ft's tonight smdh...

[Freyfamilyreuni]

meaning zion is getting 5ft's tonight smdh...

Was this the same ref crew that no called the hacks the Rockets gave Adams and Zion underneath, which caused us to cough the ball up a ton, and allowed the Rockets to get away with playing four guard lineups against us?

[As I See It]

Was this the same ref crew that no called the hacks the Rockets gave Adams and Zion underneath, which caused us to cough the ball up a ton, and allowed the Rockets to get away with playing four guard lineups against us?

No, that was the Marc Davis Crew

[6warddude]

Was this the same ref crew that no called the hacks the Rockets gave Adams and Zion underneath, which caused us to cough the ball up a ton, and allowed the Rockets to get away with playing four guard lineups against us?

idk but stan has to call the refs out in the press conference or the team has to make a tape of all the hacking zion gets and no calls are being called...

[Taker597]

Pregame show talk about having Ingram and Zion do film after every game after the 5-11 start. Wild.

[Eman5805]

Lonzo might have the highest % of 1st 3pt attempts made in the league.

[Funcrusher]

******** these refs

[Chris]

Not a good start for Zion

[Funcrusher]

I despise Eric Gordon with a passion

[kinglio21093]

Eric Gordon still *****es as much as he used to.

[Funcrusher]

Eric Gordon still *****es as much as he used to.

He should just become a Ref, seeing as how he thinks he knows better than them on just about every call.

[DaPelFromHell]

SVG should of challenged that last Zion foul cause that was horrible