The Pelicans get another national broadcast game with familiar face and voice, former coach, Stan Van Gundy commentating the game on TNT. Not the only reunion involved tonight, as current Pelicans Head Coach Willie Green returns to face his former team, the Phoenix Suns - also including former New Orleans Head Coach Monty Williams and former New Orleans Hornets point guard and Willie Green teammate Chris Paul. How weird huh? The Suns do enter the game struggling a bit. Chris Paul comes into the game with a -12.2 net rating, again small sample size, and Deandre Ayton missed the game with a right leg contusion. Brandon Ingram misses his second straight game with a right hip contusion. I won’t even get into Zion’s injury timeline because David Griffin or Zion’s family refuse to be transparent about the guy’s health. Oh well, into the game.
The Pelicans started out this game great forcing a bunch of turnovers whether it be intercepting and deflecting passes or getting on-ball pokes and steals. Herb Jones continues to be great and active on the defensive end. He intercepts at least two passes a game it feels like. He did exit this game early after being hit by Valanciunas and would not return after experiencing concussion-like symptoms. A big loss later in the game as Willie Green has put Jones on the opposing teams best offensive player in every game. And Devin Booker, Herb’s assignment tonight, did struggle in the first half. On the negative side of the defense, Valanciunas still struggles protecting the rim. He is pretty slow footed and struggles trying to get the rim if he plays the screen too high. Also had a possession where Frank the Tank Kaminsky beat him to the rim in the first quarter. Another issue that Pelicans fans should have expected is just Graham’s height. Willie Green started the game blitzing Chris Paul on pick and rolls. Graham tried coming from the weak side to guard the roll man, Javale McGee in this case, and Graham just has no chance of deflecting the pass as long as the pass is decently thrown up high. Very knit-picky, but I think Graham should be used as a point of attack defender just to avoid these kind of plays. If he doesn’t die on screens and rushes back into the play after being hit by one, he is feisty enough on-ball to be a nuisance to the opposing ball-handler. The last note on the overall team defense in the first half was the switching in the second unit. I did not notice a single miscommunication between two Pelican defenders in the first half which is a wonderful sign with the young guys. Towards the end of the game, a few instances of hesitation between the switches, but nothing that left someone wide open.
Offensively in the first half, a lot of turnovers lead to easy baskets. The Pelicans forced 8 turnovers for 15 points off of turnovers in the first quarter, and forced 14 turnovers for 22 points in the first half. The Pelicans had 11 of their own turnovers in the first half, but the Suns only scored 10 points off them. Pelicans ran a great play before halftime that gave Trey Murphy a open corner 3 that he missed. A few possessions where guys just stood in the corner as the ball made their way to them, and the Pelican player just stands in the corner with ball not moving or anything. Need to move out the corner and keep the ball movement going. My one issue with the offense is the Pelicans need to get into their offensive actions quicker which might lead to less end of shot chucks. Graham continues to impress as a lead guard. It was interesting going against Chris Paul, but Graham navigates the pick and roll similar to Paul as he snakes around for mid-rangers and a few three point attempts. Valanciunas shot the shit out of the ball in this game, especially the early portions, going 3 for 4 on three pointers and knocking down a few mid-rangers. Kira Lewis had another shaky game after what I thought were his two best games of the year. His first possession was a bad pass on a pick and roll that lead to a turnover, and that is not how you want to start a game, especially as a point guard. Passing is still an issue with this team. Temple had a turnover where he passed the ball too early to JV when he was still fighting for position in the post. When Zion returns, he will help the spacing on the floor with his overall gravity, but I doubt the spacing will be so much more improved to where the turnovers will drop by a significant margin.
Jaxson Hayes continues to go after every offensive rebound possible which I think might be something Willie Green just wants from his guys. It always seems like the Pelicans have one guy crashing on the offensive glass when a shot gets thrown up in the half court. Hayes did play two alley oops very well where he was much more patient and attentive with the ball-handlers. My critique of Hayes has been that he bites on every guard attacking the rim. He would jump in the air when the guard doesn’t even leap for a layup attempt which would just leave the big man wide open underneath the rim. Hayes needs to just deter guards with his length and react more to what’s happening which he was doing tonight. Also played a pass perfectly for a steal during a pick and roll. He is still very inconsistent, but it is difficult for a guy to be the defensive anchor early on in their career. Had one possession where he was just lazy on a pick and roll where UL-Lafayette alum, Elfrid Payton, got an easy layup. Also just needs to keep his motor hot and get back on defense more. Also, Jaxson Hayes and Javale McGee on the court at the same time is Spider-Man meme in real life.
Naji Marshall had 3 great quarters of defense. Intercepted an inbound pass in the second quarter for a score and a great block on Devin Booker. Also had some good offensive possessions, beat his man, got into the paint and dished it off to Hayes who just didn’t catch the quick pass. Got into the paint again and hit Murphy in the corner for a 3. He wasn’t as active and quick with his rotations in the fourth quarter which was the start of the Suns comeback, but he continues to impress me with his activity on the court, just needs to find some more offense.
Josh Hart is great at getting into the body of the offensive players and sticking with them around screens. He is also so underrated as a slasher. He never gets sped up by the defense and always seems so calm as he attacks the rim.
NAW continues to finish well around the rim and continously tries on defense except for a few naps while being off ball. His shot selection still needs to improve like removing the long 2’s. He can’t decide to iso against Mikal Bridges with 10 seconds on the shot clock.
Turnovers built up the Pelicans lead, and turnovers tore down the Pelicans lead. The Suns comeback really started towards the end of the 2nd quarter and into the 3rd by forcing more turnovers than they did in the 1st quarter. The Suns also only had 5 turnovers in the second half which is mostly thanks to a vintage CP3 performance in the second half. The Pelicans did stop a big Suns run after Garrett Temple hit two consecutive 3’s followed by a Valanciunas 3 and poster. I do have to say Frank Kaminsky was great in this game. He held his ground defensively in the paint against JV, even frustrating JV after consecutive misses. Also, forced a miss after NAW attacked him in an iso attempt. The game started with the Suns missing a lot of their open looks in the 1st quarter, and them just progressively shooting better as the game went along. Devin Booker did finish the game 7 for 20 after starting 3 for 15, but Booker had 3 shots toilet bowl out of the rim in the 1st half.
The Suns started the 4th quarter strong because the Pelicans were late on their rotations to the roll man leading to some Javale McGee highlights and and-ones. Naji was involved in some of these which I mentioned earlier. But really the story was CP3 just putting on a clinic in the 4th quarter. Snaking around screens for mid-rangers when we played drop coverage, hit the roll man early when the Pelicans began blitzing him again in the 4th. The problem with blitzing a guy in the pick and roll is that if the roll man gets the ball quick enough and can find the open man quickly enough, you give up open shots. And the Suns can have some great shooters with Booker, Bridges, and Crowder. The Suns also introduced a beautiful offensive wrinkle that I will try and describe through text. When the Pelicans would blitz Paul, you have two defenders on the blitz, two defenders guarding the two nearest shooters on the 3-point line, and your weak side defender, in this case guarding a player in the weak side corner, leaves his man to meet the roll man in the paint. Instead of telling Chris Paul “Hey, make this pass across the entire width of the court that could get deflected or be slow enough that everyone can scramble back to their original assignments,” the weak side corner man would cut along the baseline to the strong side corner behind the entire defense. Now Chris Paul just has to stall the blitz long enough for the guy to complete the cut for the exact same wide open corner shot, but now the pass is much easier to complete. Also, if the defense realizes the cut, which the Pelicans never did, after all of the rotations, you end up with JV guarding someone on the perimeter after blitzing Paul. It was a beautiful wrinkle by the Suns, and a real student has yet to become the master moment between Willie Green and Monty Williams.
The Pelicans just don’t have a go to perimeter guy to get a bucket right now with Brandon Ingram hurt. I would say Devonte Graham is the best option for that, but I much rather him be involved in a pick and roll to get a shot for himself. But overall New Orleans showed a lot of fight in this game. The Suns are just the better team. They did win the western conference last year after all. It would have been a great win for the team and Willie Green, but the team just seemed to run out of gas late which is unfortunate. NOLA doesn’t have too much time to sulk and play what-if’s as they face the Kings tomorrow night. We will see if the Kings will run their double screens again and how Willie Green will adjust to the Kings offense.