Four-game road trip kicks off tonight in the Windy City ✈️
— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) February 10, 2021
🏀 at Chicago
🕗 8 p.m. CT
📺 @FOXSportsNOLA
📻 100.3 FM @ESPNRadioNOLA @SmoothieKing | #WontBowDown pic.twitter.com/8azjoH5Ffc
Here we go again. The 11-12 Pelicans, on a winning streak, come up to play against the 9-14 Chicago Bulls. The Bulls are the league's 18th rated offense and 20th rated defense; meanwhile, the Pels have improved to be the 8th rated offense and the 21st rated defense. So we're about equal on D, but the Pels are significantly more effective offensively. Gotcha.
The Bulls have lost 3 of their last 4, and 6 of their last 8: they're not in great shape. Wendell Carter is out, Lauri Markkanen is out, Chandler Hutchison is out, and Otto Porter is day to day. The Bulls turn the ball over more than almost anyone, the second most in the league, and while they're 8th in assists per game they aren't top 15 in anything else. They're 12th in 3pt% but only 14th in attempts, and they're a pretty low volume FT team as well (19th in the league) despite shooting it at the 7th best %age.
Their best player right now is Zach Lavine, a guy who is a truly impressive scorer and an improved playmaker, but who cannot really defend anyone at all and who can be prone to dodgy decision making. Meanwhile, Coby White's efficiency lives in the dirt right now (shooting under 40% from the floor and under league average from 3).
Impressive for them, and promising, is Patrick Williams; a guy that I and many others had in the lottery this last draft, he's showing up so far: averaging about 10/4 in 27 minutes a game despite being extremely young and shooting 47/39/82 splits, he's been nice for them. They do have, between him and Thad Young, decent big defenders; not that I think they're decent enough to stop Zion, but the point remains.
This should be another win, and if it is, we hit .500 for the first time since we were 4-4; only 20 games later.