If you thought the New Orleans Pelicans\u2019 first 10 games was a bumpy ride, you may want to buckle up for these next five.<\/p>\n
Especially if the Pelicans\u2019 most recent outing, a 121-98 thrashing by the Phoenix Suns on Monday night, is an indication of things to come.<\/p>\n
The Pelicans, fresh off yet another lackluster performance, return to the Smoothie King Center Wednesday night for a rugged 5-game homestand.<\/p>\n
It begins against the improved Portland Trail Blazers, who now have former Pelican fan favorite Jrue Holiday on their roster.<\/p>\n
After that, the real gauntlet begins.<\/p>\n
The Pels host the Lakers Friday, then have back-to-back games on Sunday and Monday against the Golden State Warriors and Oklahoma City Thunder before closing out the stretch on Wednesday against the Denver Nuggets.<\/p>\n
It’s a Who\u2019s Who of NBA greats over the next eight days.<\/p>\n
Luka Doncic. Steph Curry. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Nikola Jokic. Fortunately for the Pels, Lebron James won\u2019t be available when the Lakers come to town. But even without James, that\u2019s still a total of six MVPs in Curry (2), Gilgeous-Alexander (1) and Jokic (3) and another player (Doncic) who will surely collect an MVP or two one day soon. This schedule would be tough for any team.<\/p>\n
But for a team that has been as bad and inconsistent as the Pelicans the first 10 games, the schedule almost seems unfair. If the NBA postseason started today, all five of the teams on the Pelicans\u2019 upcoming slate would be playing. That includes the Blazers (5-5), who would be the No. 9 seed and in the play-in tournament.<\/p>\n
The Pelicans, meanwhile, are off to a 2-8 start. They\u2019ve lost three of those eight games by at least 30 points and another by 23. As of Tuesday, the Pelicans ranked 27th in the league in points allowed, yielding 121.3 points per game.<\/p>\n
“We have to be better starting on the defensive end,” Green said. “That’s where it all starts. Our aggression on the defensive end. Our communication on the defensive end.”<\/p>\n
Phoenix guard Grayson Allen exploded for a career-high 42 points Monday and knocked down 10 of the most wide-open 3-pointers he will ever take in an NBA game. Doncic and Curry have to be chomping at the bit to step foot in the Smoothie King Center if that\u2019s how the Pelicans are going to defend.<\/p>\n
Things haven\u2019t been much better on the offensive end. The Pelicans, averaging 108 points per game, are 28th in the league in scoring. Not being able to score and not being able to stop the other team from scoring is why the Pelicans have the worst record in the Western Conference and the fourth worst record in the league. In most of the losses, there is a run by the opponent that the Pelicans are unable to stop. In the season-opening loss to Memphis, the Pels got outscored 41-22 in the third quarter. In Monday\u2019s loss in Phoenix, the Suns outscored the Pelicans 35-19 in the second quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just punched us in the mouth right away,\u201d Green said. \u201cJust below our standard. \u2026 We\u2019ve got to stop waiting as a team to get punched and then start trying to fight. We\u2019ve got to start the game that way. We\u2019re below our standard of where we want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unless the Pelicans quickly figure things out, these next five games will push them even further below the standard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you thought the New Orleans Pelicans\u2019 first 10 games was a bumpy ride, you may want to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[8803,355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-286200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-hardwall","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}