No #Pelicans players listed on injury report for tonight?s game ⤵️ @SmoothieKing | #WBD https://t.co/Ed96AwSOmV
— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) February 27, 2021
On the road again, this time to face off against the 16-12 San Antonio Spurs.
They are 22nd in ORtg and 8th in DRtg, which is the kind of thing we actually don't mind meeting: our offense is great so matching up against a good defense doesn't ruin us, and our defense is bad so playing a team with a bad offense is (on paper) a good thing. Of course, the reverse is also true: they have a terrible offense so they'll be glad to meet a porous defense, and so on.
The Spurs have played one game since February 14th. This is due to various game reschedulings and cancellations due to COVID stuff, but the end result is that this team has basically had 2 weeks off, meanwhile we've been scratching and clawing at games that entire time. Will we be able to catch a sleeping team, gone cold? Or will their rest have re-energised them while we flag in strength? It will be interesting to see.
Aldridge and DeRozan are both questionable, and Keldon Johnson, Devin Vassell, Derrick White, and Rudy Gay are all listed as out. Frankly speaking, that should make this game eminently winnable: they're missing at least 4 of their top 10 minutes getters this season, potentially missing as many as six. That should make them a team designed for us to steamroll.
Of course, it's San Antonio, so it's never that easy. They're a disciplined team, only turning the ball over 11 times a game and fouling at the league's second lowest rate. They don't give up easy looks at the rim: opponents get the 5th fewest 2pt attempts against San Antonio in the league. In general, this is a team that is winning due to discipline and structure, despite a relative lack of talent (not saying they have no talent, but they're not stacked top to bottom like, say, Utah is).
For us, I think we should enter this game determined for a win. Nobody on our team is out, while they're plague-stricken. Their offense is bad, they have barely played in weeks, and we're actually not playing too badly recently (won 3 of our last 5, and are 7-6 over our last 13), so we should try and pick this one up while we can.
Will we?