New Orleans Pelicans: What to watch for vs. San Antonio Spurs
The New Orleans Pelicans enter Wednesday night’s game against the San Antonio Spurs already having locked down a successful December. Despite missing a starter for the entire month the Pelicans took a brutal schedule and have found a way to come through it with a winning record thanks to impressive wins over teams like the Houston Rockets, Oklahoma City Thunder and Phoenix Suns. Now they look to add one more impressive win to that total by besting the San Antonio Spurs for the third time this season.
Against the Suns the Pelicans won thanks very much to a total team effort. Anthony Davis finished with 19 points and 18 rebounds to lead the Pelicans but contributions came from everywhere. Tyreke Evans finished with 24 points, eight rebounds and four assists and scored the final eight points for New Orleans to seal things. Jrue Holiday finished with 21 points and six assists including a stretch of ten straight points in the third quarter. Even Jimmer Fredette contributed with nine points and four assists off the bench.
The Spurs meanwhile come in a battered bunch. San Antonio sits in seventh place in the Western Conference at the moment and with Kawhi Leonard and Tony Parker unlikely to play tonight due to injuries and Tim Duncan possibly being held out for rest after playing last night the Pelicans probably won’t see anything close to peak Spurs. Corey Joseph has played well for San Antonio all year, including leading them with 18 points on 9-13 shooting last night but they just aren’t as dangerous as normal right now.
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When and where: The game will be played at 6 pm CT at the AT&T Center in San Antonio.
How to watch: The game will be broadcast on Fox Sports New Orleans.
Injury report:
New Orleans: Eric Gordon is out with a torn labrum in his left shoulder. John Salmons is out for personal reasons.
San Antonio: Tony Parker is likely out with a hamstring injury. Kawhi Leonard is out with a hand injury.
Probable starting lineups:
New Orleans: PG Jrue Holiday, SG Tyreke Evans, SF Luke Babbitt, PF Anthony Davis, C Omer Asik
San Antonio: PG Corey Joseph, SG Marco Belinelli, SF Danny Green, PF Tim Duncan, C Tiago Splitter
Other players to watch:
New Orleans: Ryan Anderson, Jimmer Fredette, Dante Cunningham, Austin Rivers
San Antonio: Boris Diaw, Matt Bonner, Manu Ginobili, Patty Mills, Aaron Baynes
What to watch for:
Did Jimmer earn more minutes?
I thought Jimmer Fredette played very well last night even despite the fact that his shots just didn’t go in. Jimmer made the right pass, played solid defense and took the shots that he needed to as a way to keep the defense honest. Eventually the shots will start falling and I wonder if we will start to see more Jimmer with John Salmons out.
Can the Pelicans fight off the letdown?
Last night’s win over the Suns was big. The Pelicans battled all night and answered run after run from the Suns to come away with a win over the team directly ahead of them in the playoff race. It is easy to let down tonight on the road against a team that is missing at least two starters. If the Pelicans can avoid that they put themselves in a very good position to take the first three games of the season series from the Spurs which would be a great feat.
What would the late game offense be?
I know the Pelicans won last night’s game but the late game offense wasn’t good. There will be nights Tyreke Evans hits a ton of tough shots and when he does New Orleans is tough to beat. But if any of his final three shots miss, which isn’t hard to imagine as they were all tough, the game could have been completely different. Hopefully Monty Williams realizes this and doesn’t continue to call Evans hero ball at the end of close games.