Someway, somehow, the New Orleans Pelicans stole a victory tonight against the Memphis Grizzlies. After last night’s horrible loss, to the Boston Celtics the Pelicans, the Pelicans needed a good win to keep them in the playoff race with the Oklahoma City Thunder and Phoenix Suns. Well, when the game had tipped off it looked like New Orleans was going to do the opposite, because the Grizzlies proceeded to put a beat down on the Pelicans. New Orleans couldn’t get anything on offense going largely due to the Grizzlies physical nature. They out physicaled New Orleans on both ends of the floor, and at one point led by 18. The Pelicans managed to close it to 12 before the end of the half, but the damage had been done. New Orleans was completely outplayed and they were on their way to what looked like a brutal loss.
Then they decided to do what the Pelicans do best, and that’s do a complete and total 360! The same exact team that lost to the Celtics came out of the half and proceed to blitz the Grizzlies. They played faster, moved better on sets, were stronger, and worked all the way to a lead midway through the third quarter. From that point on it was a seesaw battle of offense vs defense, and nobody was sure who would win. No particular players were sticking out any more than expected and whoever was going to win was gonna need some big plays.
For New Orleans, those plays came from Eric Gordon and Tyreke Evans. While Anthony Davis was his usual awesome self, it was those two that pushed the Pelicans over the edge and let them steal a victory over Memphis in a game they probably should have lost.
Tweet of the night:
Awesome, Pels beat the second best team in the West. Probably will lose to the Nets.
— James Grayson (@jsgrayson) March 8, 2015