The New Orleans Pelicans fell down big early and never recovered. Grades from a second straight loss.
Entering Saturday night’s game in Utah the New Orleans Pelicans were just trying to forget a poor performance against the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday night and steal a win. With the Jazz missing starting power forward Derrick Favors and the Pelicans having the services of Anthony Davis after he left the Clippers game early there were reasons to believe the Pelicans had a chance. Then the game started and only Davis showed up for the first quarter for New Orleans and the Pelicans ended up digging too deep of a hole and fell for the second straight night.
Other observations:
- Figuring out how to fix the center spot is hard but New Orleans needs to do it. 40 plus minute nights are becoming too common for Anthony Davis this early in the season.
- The problem there is Omer Asik seems completely broken right now and not at all a fit for this system. Asik is constantly slow up the court and ignored on offense meaning the Pelicans are playing four on five fairly often. Moving him to bench units will only make matters worse so benching him is the only real solution.
- The wing defense needs to be better.
- The three game winning streak seems so far away. The Clippers/Jazz back-to-back were both games that reminded fans of the early season Pelicans which is tough. They aren’t this bad but they probably aren’t as good as that three game streak during which Ryan Anderson played the best he has in years either.
- It is a shame to waste that type of performance from Anthony Davis.
The Pelicans get back to action on Tuesday when they host the Memphis Grizzlies before a game with the Houston Rockets on Wednesday. Before the game Alvin Gentry said it looks like both Norris Cole and Tyreke Evans will play Tuesday barring setbacks.