The Pelicans have not started the season out well showing their overall youth, roster turnover, and new coaching staff. The Pelicans look to bounce back with a second consecutive game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The previous game, New Orleans continued to fight hard throughout but could not overcome their 28 turnovers and terrible shooting nights by the starting backcourt duo of Graham and NAW who went a combined 8 for 38, 3 for 23 from 3-point range. Also, head coach Willie Green shocked most with the move of starting rookie second round pick Herb Jones. Surprising most, especially many feeling that 17th overall pick Trey Murphy had impressed enough in preseason to start. However, the move has worked out reasonably well. Herb adds some more length and help defense to a lacking starting lineup. His offense is still a question mark, but you have to take what you can get with starting a second-round pick. I also think it helps Willie Green with setting up his future rotations once Zion returns from his injury - still no word on that.
Onto the game, the first part of this game I have to talk about is the battle between the centers. Valanciunas and Karl Anthony-Towns continued their fight against each other from Saturday night to tonight. KAT and JV both had to deal with foul trouble in this game. KAT had two fouls in the first quarter while JV played with 5 fouls for the last 5 minutes of the game. JV finishes with 22 points and 23 rebounds and played his ass off. Lots of hits to the face and a lot of minutes overall - 39 minutes played for the big man, the most on the team. Did not shoot it too well percentage wise, but battling in the paint for offensive boards all game long is a big help especially with wearing down KAT. JV also goes perfect from the free throw line with 8 attempts and stays perfect from the charity stripe for the year. Definitely a great performance showing why he deserves the recent contract extension - which is a pretty reasonable contract in my opinion. Yes the season opener and team debut was bad against the 76ers where JV went 3 for 17, but being a big body in the paint, grabbing boards, and setting great screens for Brandon Ingram to close out the game, this was just an all around great performance from JV, the player Grizzlies and Raptors fans have come to love. His shooting percentages may be concerning around the rim, but one, a lot of offensive rebounds being tipped around probably account for some of the misses, and two, once Zion comes back and can take the offensive burden JV has to carry now, I think we will see a jump in his percentages with better quality shots stemming from Zion’s gravity.
Brandon Ingram taking over key parts of the game where needed was the other great aspect of this game for Pelican fans. He had two key scoring burst, one in the second quarter and late in the fourth. The fourth quarter shots came from better spacing again. Having JV set off-ball screens for BI late in the game gave him plenty of room to knock down his mid-rangers. Also shooting 4 for 7 on 3-pointers is a nice sign as well.
Want to touch on the guards again since it is such an important group for this team, but I mostly want to discuss the two starters - Graham and NAW. In my opinion, the Pelicans may not win this game if Graham doesn’t play and that shows in the box score as Graham had a team high +23 for the game. He had two or three clutch circus shots late in the shot clock that bailed the Pelicans out when they were very stagnant on offense. Graham also had 7 assists to go with his 21 points for the game. The key to Graham’s game overall was not settling for jumpshots. He finished the game 1 for 6 from 3-point range, but 8 for 16 overall from the field. He wasn’t forcing any shots unless he had to late in the clock. Everything felt in rhythm for him and when he was struggling from 3-point range, he stepped in, knocked down mid-range shots, and was fairly effective around the rim besides one bad layup decision that KAT spiked off of the backboard. He has definitely taking the role of our lead guard. I say this as I move to NAW. He started off well slashing to the rim and finishing with his crafty layups. Later in the game however, he didn’t feel apart of the offense almost. Various times, Nickeil would be standing far behind the 3-point line asking for the ball while guys are trying to run a set or a pick and roll. He is kind of a ball stopper at times which does not go well with Willie Green’s 0.5 second offense. Late in the game, Nickeil also had a stretch of bad plays. Quickly passing the ball to Devonte Graham after grabbing a rebound when Graham wasn’t looking, rebounds and deflections just going through his hands. There were so many little things he just wasn’t doing, I just wrote out as a note that he needed to just play better - there was no other way to really say it.
Eventually, Willie Green pulled NAW and went with the final closing lineup of Graham, Ingram, JV, Herb Jones, and Garrett Temple. Garrett Temple, who has been slandered by Pelicans fans for his play, me partially included, played well tonight. Made some open shots, attacked closeouts well, made the right passes when needed to, even recorded another block with quick hands. The one problem Temple faced is guarding Anthony Edwards which I really wouldn’t blame on Temple. He doesn’t setup the matchups. Edwards did not shoot well from the field overall in the game, but he did have a big third quarter that fueled the comeback attempt of the Twolves. Edwards began attacking the rim instead of settling for 3-pointers including a big dunk over Trey Murphy - I didn’t forget about BI’s poster on Edwards later in the game. But Temple just isn’t athletic enough to keep up with last year’s number one overall pick. And he shouldn’t really be expected to because he’s the old vet on the team. During Edwards third quarter run, I thought that was the time to put Naji Marshall into the game. Marshall is way more athletic than Temple and still very active on defense - I still think Marshall needs more minutes but oh well. But even the other guys on the court weren’t stopping Edwards in transition either. This team just does not have a point of attack or go-to defensive stopper. You could say Herb, but I think he is a better help defender than iso defender right now. I think Naji could step into that role because he does have pretty quick feet and decent length - not as much as Herb.
Overall on the game, the Twolves didn’t really shoot that well, 34.4% from the field and 30% from 3. The trio of KAT, Edwards, and Russell had a lot of open looks overall that they just missed. New Orleans finishes with 17 turnovers but only allowed 12 points off of turnovers. It also helps when most of your turnovers are bad passes that go out of bounds instead of live ball turnovers that lead to easy transition dunks and layups. The Pelicans continue to rebound well with 60 total. Not as much effort of everyone crashing the boards like the first game against the 76ers, but it never hurts when you out rebound the opposing team. This team is showing a lot of effort on the defensive end, ranking 15th in the league right now. If the Pelicans can hold a defensive ranking of 15-20 when Zion returns to the lineup, this team should be able to stack some wins together. I am beginning to worry about the 3 point shooting a little bit with both Graham and NAW having consecutive off shooting nights from downtown, but these guys are being asked to do a lot more than they thought before the season started. But you are only the sum of your parts. If you cannot trust your team to get a few wins without your best player, you’re not a good enough team that can make the playoffs. And remember good teams win, great teams cover.
Next Pelicans game is at home against Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks on ESPN at 6:30. Planning on having another game recap for that one as well.