December 4th - New Orleans Pelicans @ Sacramento Kings - 11-10

[Pelicanidae]

In-Season Tournament Quarterfinals 🏆

🏀: vs Sacramento Kings
🕘: 9 pm CT
📺: @BallySportsNO & TNT
📻: @995WRNO#Pelicans | @SmoothieKing pic.twitter.com/QHgAHCBrDD

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) December 4, 2023

Well, we lost last game and while you can point to a lot of reasons, the central reason was - as it has been multiple times for us this season - that we got shot out of the game from 3. Coby White alone made as many 3s as our entire team; that will generally doom you, regardless of what else you do. And we were competitive elsewhere; more FTs, even in TOs and rebounds, etc. Just got outshot. Not a huge surprise in a game where all of our shooters were out again.

Tonight, CJ and Trey Murphy return as both are unlisted on the injury report, and just in time for us to play Sacramento as part of the In Season Tournament. This game is a serious one for me, for two reasons.

1) It's a tournament game, and while I'm not the kind of people who is overly invested in the tournament I do think it would be neat to win if we can: and players on the team have said as much in interviews, most notably Zion. So here's a chance to bounce back from an irritating loss with a win that actually has stakes.

2) We currently have 13 games scheduled for Dec and it's an easy month, as myself and others have stated. I think a good realistic outcome (if the team plays well) for this month is 9-4 in those scheduled games. Chicago, while a game against a bad team, is an understandable loss in my eyes due to the fact that we once again had people missing, and it was a b2b on the other side of the country. But it was also our only b2b of the month, so that excuse is now dead until January; we are 1-1 in a month I want to go 9-4, so we need the wins now. We've shown we can beat Sacramento already twice this season, so it's time to do it again.

Since we last beat SAC, they've picked up wins over Minnesota and Denver and are coming off of rest at home, so they have some momentum behind them and will likely be a tougher challenge than last time, but I know this team can do it. Especially with CJ and Trey back, both of whom were missing the last two times we played them. They actually have a worse net rating than the Pelicans, particularly stemming from their awful defense; which makes sense, the last two times we played them Zion and Jonas couldn't miss and Ingram had his 5/5 from 3 game. I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes against the league's 19th ranked defense when we have even more shooting and space to operate in.

I know this team can do it, and if they want to live up to expectations this month, they basically have to do it. No real arguments there; or for the rest of the month, in fact. The time to win is now.

Let's see if they can do it.

[As I See It]

Feed Jonas early and often; let him eat.

BANG...BANG...BANG!!! All over Sabonis. You hear that, Cody?

Pressure Fox from baseline to baseline. When he's in the game, one of Herb...Dyson...Jose' has got to be tormenting him.

Can CJ / Hawk handle Huerter / Monk?

3M3 has to outgun Monk.

Pelicans are horrific in allowing teams offensive rebounds. We can't allow the Kings extra possessions; they'll make us pay.

DEFENSE...DEFENSE...DEFENSE!!!

Postscript: Foul trouble to JV or Herb might doom us.

Postscript # 2: Small ball will play right into their hands.

[donato]

IF we can pull this off it ALMOST makes up for the Chicago and Utah losses. At least from a confidence point of view. Let's eat.

[superstar7th]

I hope willie doesn't go full retard and go small ball. I worry more about the coaching in a game like this. We match up very well with them. The coaching and rotations will make or break us.

[PaKwAn]

Kings fans actually hate this matchup for them because pels have the pieces that they have trouble with. One thing kings do well is offense, run and score. Defense is their weakness hopefully we capitalize on that.

I actually like this game a lot because kings fans are one of the best fans in the league. Expect it to be rocking and would feel like a playoff atmosphere game.. would be good to see how the pels respond in that type of environment this early in the season.

[Mrakar]

Jonas had 2 solid games against them and Herb and Dyson tortured Fox on D. We need to play CJ off the bench today and we cant play a lot with small ball since they will kill us on the boards then. That is our only chance to win the game.
Herb and Dyson can switch on Fox and one of them should be in every minute of the game, i would say start them both and after 5 minutes one goes to bench and they switch again after 5.

That said, Green will start CJ and play Zeller 20 minutes and we lose by 30.

[PELICANSFAN]

Jonas had 2 solid games against them and Herb and Dyson tortured Fox on D. We need to play CJ off the bench today and we cant play a lot with small ball since they will kill us on the boards then. That is our only chance to win the game.
Herb and Dyson can switch on Fox and one of them should be in every minute of the game, i would say start them both and after 5 minutes one goes to bench and they switch again after 5.

That said, Green will start CJ and play Zeller 20 minutes and we lose by 30.

CJ will start. That is for sure.

[Pelicanidae]

CJ will start. That is for sure.

CJ will absolutely start, and should. Now that Dyson's shooting has come back down to earth and BI's cold start to the year from 3 continues, we are so desperate for shooting it's not even funny.

And frankly, Zeller has been mostly fine this season - in fact, largely a positive. There are instances where he's been poor but generally speaking I don't really get the hate. He's been lightyears better than Nance.

Far more important than benching CJ is, imo, the focus on the paint. The Kings are one of the worst paint protecting teams in the NBA: not only do teams get there often, but the Kings allow opponents to shoot 68% when they get there as well; that's one of the worst percentages-at-rim in the NBA. Bottom 6.

Tonight needs to be Jonas and Zion attacking attacking attacking. Sabonis is great but if he's their guy at C, Jonas needs to put him in the torture chamber and Zion needs to put a hole in his chest. Passivity cannot be accepted imo.

At some point I'd love to see a CJ/Trey/Zion/JV offense running tonight - the 5th guy can depend on what else is going on and rotations. Zion and JV putting Sabonis in the PnR while Trey and CJ space the floor basically sounds like a dream.

[As I See It]

At some point I'd love to see a CJ/Trey/Zion/JV offense running tonight - the 5th guy can depend on what else is going on and rotations.

If we were just playing on one side of the court, maybe...but we don't. That lineup couldn't be much worse defensively, unless we inserted the sharpshooter, 'Hawk-eye'.

[Mrakar]

CJ will start. That is for sure.

I know that. Because where is the logic in repeating what worked before?!

[PELICANSFAN]

I know that. Because where is the logic in repeating what worked before?!

When did he come off the bench that you are referring to?

[Pelicanidae]

When did he come off the bench that you are referring to?

I think he's referring to the Dyson/Herb/BI/Zion/JV lineup that worked really well for the handful of games that Dyson was shooting 42% from 3, but since he's now shot 11.5% from 3 over the last 8 games, I think it's safe to say the honeymoon period is very much over with that, the law of averages has come into play, and ignoring that helps nobody.

It was fun while it lasted, it's over. Shooting needs to be in the starting lineup and they're not benching Herb for Trey, so Dyson is getting benched for CJ.

[6warddude]

That said, Green will start CJ and play Zeller 20 minutes and we lose by 30.

i just knew the start dyson over CJ talk was done and over....

[As I See It]

Kings points in first quarter: +/- 30?

[6warddude]

the kings have no answer for zion....zion has to rebound from the bulls game.....im looking for 40 from zion on the big stage tonight....

[PELICANSFAN]

the kings have no answer for zion....zion has to rebound from the bulls game.....im looking for 40 from zion on the big stage tonight....

Rebound from the Bulls game? He did not have a terrible game.

[Pelicanidae]

Rebound from the Bulls game? He did not have a terrible game.

He started off slow and had too many turnovers. Statline ended nicely and he picked it up towards the end of the first half but he was way too passive first quarter. Wouldn't call it a bad enough game that you have to bounce back from it, but definitely could have been better.

[6warddude]

Rebound from the Bulls game? He did not have a terrible game.

we all have our definition of what a so so game is...i get you took rebound from me, as a bad game....

pelicanidae first 2 comments in his reply, summed up what i meant...

[JJackisangry]

Just get the dub. I’ll put my frustrations aside until the next time we lose to a bad team. Truth is we gotta switch the light on and fast. If we aspire to be a championship caliber team, we gotta stop falling apart. If we got Zion and BI available there are no excuses.

[Pelicanidae]

Just get the dub. I’ll put my frustrations aside until the next time we lose to a bad team. Truth is we gotta switch the light on and fast. If we aspire to be a championship caliber team, we gotta stop falling apart. If we got Zion and BI available there are no excuses.

Everyone is available except Nance and Matt Ryan. Not a single excuse around. Must win game imo.

The winners of the IST get $500k each. For someone like BI, Zion, or CJ that's not a huge deal; they all have $150m+ in career earnings or current contracts.

For Matt Ryan, that's more than his entire NBA career income thus far.

Stars need to be motivated because, as Zion said earlier in the year, we haven't won anything yet and this is a chance to prove what we're made of. Roleplayers better be motivated cause that's real money to them.

[Pelicanidae]

Also, not really worth it's own thread until there's real dates or images, but Christian Clark tweeted that there's going to be a regular Skelican court later in the year to match up with the black jerseys. So my hope is that the Pels are actually leaning into the voodoo imagery/colour scheme, which is good because it's awesome.

[donato]

An in-game Voodoo Pelican mascot would be awesome. Maybe take the original Pierre and make him like a zombie priest lolz.

[djrnno]

Go inside to JV dammit

[Pelicanidae]

Just a number of stuff gone wrong early.

They're hitting 3s even contested, you can't really stop that, but some other things you can control.

Not a fan of Zion taking that three. I get that it was largely open but there was so much time on the shot clock to look for something better.

CJ getting completely back cut on defense this quickly into a game is no fun.

Not involving JV in the offensive actions at all right now, not a fan.

[As I See It]

Huerter's got seven already; that can't happen.

They are up double digits already and Fox has yet to scratch.