Pelicans Look to End the Rockets 5 Game Winning Streak
Houston Rockets 118 - New Orleans Pelicans 108
The Pelicans come into tonight’s game after getting a win with a side of revenge on the Dallas Mavericks on Friday night. New Orleans had one injury entering the night as Josh Hart has missed the previous two games against the Mavericks with left knee soreness. Zion Williamson remains out recovering from his foot surgery. A scare did occur during the end of the week when Zion Williamson missed time with foot soreness, and with how news of the situation slowly trickles out, a legit timetable is still up in the air as the young forward has not even started five on five work yet. We could not see him until the beginning of the new year, and by that I mean January 2022, not whatever bullshit David Griffin would spin that phrase into. Meanwhile, the Houston Rockets enter the matchup on a 5 game winning streak which included the Bulls, Hornets, the Thunder twice, and the Orland Magic. The Rockets had four players out this game including the number 2 pick in the NBA Draft, Jalen Green, who was listed out with a hamstring injury that will be re-evaluated week to week. Their other rookie, Usman Garuba, missed with a thigh injury. Garuba was labeled as one of the best, if not the best, defender in this past draft class. Kevin Porter Jr. also missed and was labeled as day-to-day, and John Wall remains out as the organization decides how they want to handle the veteran guard returning back to the lineup. Head coach Stephen Silas said on Monday that Wall was working back into game shape because I guessed he announced he wanted to return to play while also being out of shape. Anyway, let’s get into the game.
The Rockets recent success has mostly stemmed from former Pelican and Detroit Piston Christian Wood starting and playing more minutes at center, but with Jonas Valanciunas, Stephen Silas put Daniel Theis back into the starting lineup for defensive reasons. This did not really seem to work as Jonas was simply too strong for Theis and was able to get some post scores throughout the game when Jonas was given the opportunity. Even when JV went to the bench, Willy Hernangomez was too strong for Christian Wood in the post and was able to score in the paint as well. At halftime, Hernangomez actually played more minutes than JV, and Willy finished the first half with 10 points and 12 rebounds as he continues to give good effort off of the bench. Jonas finished the first half with only 2 points in 11.5 minutes, but to start the second half, he was getting a lot of post-ups against Theis and was able to get into a decent rhythm. I thought they should have kept feeding Jonas in the paint, but in true Pelicans fashion, we had a bunch of possession with little passing that led to an average at best look on offense. I felt like the center group was the only positional group that played well throughout the entire game.
Garrett Temple started the game off pretty active as he’s replaced Josh Hart in the starting lineup which is a bummer as Hart has been playing so well lately. He deflected one pass that actual went directly to a Rockets player who got a layup out of it, hurting his already atrocious +/- for the season which is currently at a team worst -182 - JV surprisingly has the second worst at -106 but with 350 more minutes played than GT. Temple also intercepted another pass early in the first quarter. Herb Jones continues to be consistent for this team. Early in the game, he forces a travel for a turnover in the post, intercepts a pass for an easy transition score, and makes good cuts offensively. Devonte Graham had a pretty brutal night, and it started at the beginning of the game where he tried to iso Christian Wood three separate times and never got off a good shot attempt or just passed it away. He was also pretty lazy and sluggish on defense as he just didn’t rotate to other guys once he got beat. He finished the game with 9 points on 13 shots with 3 rebounds and 4 assists. The offense as a whole was not moving the ball side-to-side as much as the previous games, and almost every guard and forward struggled tonight besides Brandon Ingram who finished the game with 40 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists while shooting 15 for 28 from the field and 3 for 10 from 3-point range. But even Ingram’s game could have been way easier as there was almost no off-ball action for him to get the ball at the elbow or even close to the post, just a lot of pick and rolls and shooting over whoever was guarding him.
The Rockets best offense besides drawing fouls came once they took Theis out and had Wood play center which should not have surprised anyone coming into tonight’s game. Meanwhile when Willie Green put his first big substitution group in, which was Kira, Nickeil, Billy, and Trey playing with BI, our best offense was our guards missing layups and then Billy making putback dunks and tip-ins. Nickeil Alexander-Walker looked almost as bad as he did at the beginning of the season, but at least he comes off the bench now so there were less minutes of him making bad decisions. Oddly enough tonight, NAW was taking a lot of bad shots in the paint and around the rim which is where he is usually at his best. He was attacking the paint when the Rockets had multiple guys in the paint and was just making bad decisions overall. He finished the game with 10 points on 3 for 13 shooting and 3 for 8 from 3-point range including 5 assists. His jumper was working tonight but he did not make a single shot from 2-point range because they were all bad takes. Eventually, Willie Green subbed out BI from the previously mentioned lineup, and he simply cannot have a lineup that bad on the floor. Those guys are too inconsistent on offense and just bad on defense.
A couple of specific plays I wanted to mention. Satoransky entered the game and called for a Jonas screen when Jonas wanted to do a dribble handoff. So they eventually run a pick and roll, and Sato gets into the paint with no advantage and passes the ball back out to the perimeter with 8 seconds on the shot clock effectively killing that possession. The Pelicans had one possession where Trey Murphy, Graham, and NAW all missed a 3-pointer when they were all pretty decent looks. Garrison Matthews, who is one of the best shooters on the Rockets, was left wide open after Graham made a 3-pointer. Everybody was just lazy getting back on defense. Houston was running some pindown screens for Christian Wood when he was at center, and Billy and JV could not get around the screens in time to contest any of these shots. I wish the Pels would’ve switched these actions, but no one on New Orleans ever stepped up after their man screened our centers leading to just wide open 3’s for Wood. Garrett Temple had one of the worst stretches I’ve seen an individual player have this season. He some how short-arms an entry pass to Brandon Ingram when Ingram was maybe 6-8 feet away from him, and then the defender makes a layup over him on the subsequent fastbreak. On the next defensive possession, he gives up a 3-shot foul, and finally, after Herb catches a cross court pass and finds Temple in the paint after his drive, Temple misses a wide open layup. NAW did play some good one-on-one defense on Eric Gordon before halftime, so a positive note there. The Pelicans finished the first half shooting 4 for 19 from 3-point range.
To start the second half, Eric Gordon scored 13 points in the first 6 minutes. BI did have a good game scoring wise, but the ball needs to move more. These past few games when New Orleans is actually competitive and winning games, we average way more assists and have more ball movement. The Pelicans did go into a 2-3 zone with about 5 minutes left in the 3rd when most of the bench was on the court, and this did give the Rockets some issues as they tried to shoot out of the zone. Funny enough, Houston also went into a zone their very next defensive possession. Jonas did hurt his back while he and Christian Wood were fighting for a rebound, but he did return at the start of the fourth quarter and played the entire fourth. New Orleans did have some good overall 3-point shooting in the third quarter that kept them alive in the game. Kira Lewis also had some great attacks at the rim at the end of the third quarter including a nice floater that we always hear he is working on at practices. The Pelicans did have a lot of fouling that kept the lead at double digits throughout most of the second half. It was a pretty quick whistle with a lot of ticky tack foul calls, but you have to adjust and deal with it somehow. Herb Jones did end up fouling out with 4:37 left in the game. He had a pretty tough night with all of the foul calls. One stretch in the fourth, he blocked Kenyon Martin Jr’s shot in two straight possessions, but both times Martin got the deflection and went right back up for a score. After Herb fouled out, Willie Green put in Garrett Temple in the closing lineup which included BI, JV, NAW, and Graham.
In the fourth when JV returned, he had a few possessions where he had guards defending him, but he never got the ball in the post. The one Rockets rookie that did play, Alperen Sengun, held his own pretty well defensively against Valanciunas in my opinion. You can see the Jokic comparisons with him as well, he already runs the dribble-handoff game pretty well. He did win the Turkish League MVP at 18 years old for a reason. I would like to see some more adjustments during the game. Antonio Daniels mentioned it on the broadcast that New Orleans kept going over every screen including guys that are not real 3-point shooting threats. I mentioned all of the foul calls, the Rockets were in the bonus with 8:20 left in the fourth quarter while the Pelicans reached it at 5:57.
A few more plays to talk about during the last stretch of the game. Valanciunas and Temple had a miscommunication on a DJ Augustin and Sengun dribble handoff which lead to a wide open corner 3 from Augustin. Just frustrating that these are your “vets” and they still don’t communicate enough on the floor even during the final stretch of the game. Jonas had two great defensive plays in a row: the first he hustles back after a turnover and blocks DJ Augustin’s layup on the fastbreak. The next play, he blocks Sengun’s layup after Sengun got a head of steam coming towards the paint. NAW had a great pass to Graham in the corner that lead to a 3 as Matthews was not ready for the pass. However, NAW had maybe the worst decision of the entire game right at the end when New Orleans had one last chance at the comeback win. Garrett Temple forces a steal and passes it up to Nickeil, but he does a terrible eurostep in transition when we don’t even have the man advantage on the fastbreak.
Overall, the offense needs to have more ball movement. Even when BI is hot like tonight, the ball needs to be constantly moving because that is when the offense is at it’s best. Also not sure if you want to shoot 38 3-point attempts when you only end up making 10 of those attempts, maybe try to attack the paint more. This was the third most 3-point attempts New Orleans has had so far this season. The defense I just do not see improving much because we simply do not have good defenders. Maybe the zone will return in future games as it seemed to work pretty well, but we will have to wait and see. The Pelicans next game is on Wednesday at 7 in the Blender.