New Orleans Pelicans Podcast: Pels vs Bulls Pre Game With Editor Rick Stone
The New Orleans Pelicans are playing their best basketball, winners of eight of the last eleven contests following their sizable victory over the Sacramento Kings. However, the birds still need to win out to have any chance at a postseason berth, and next up is the Chicago Bulls.
Below is an excerpt from our conversation with Pelican Debrief’s Editor and Site Expert, Rick Stone. We preview the game tonight, between the New Orleans Pelicans and Chicago Bulls. The discussion also turns to the offseason, where the Pelicans have lots of questions to answer. To hear the conversation in its entirety, click the player below:
Preston Ellis @PrestonEllis:
In the past several games, Alvin Gentry has opted for a starting second quarter lineup, void of big three players, Jrue Holiday, DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis. In large part, with the exception of the Denver Nuggets, this lineup has been getting killed. Talk about Gentry’s reasoning with the continual use of this lineup.
Rick Stone (@RickStoneNBA):
It’s Alvin Gentry wanting to play the big three as much as possible. He’s trying to put in a lineup, without the big three, that has the best chance of keeping the game in range. None of those guys are going to change the game. The best the Pelicans can really hope for with those lineups is to hold par, and keep the games as close as they can.
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But it is a problem. The biggest problem, is outside of the top three, there aren’t a lot of creators. For instance, the Tyreke Evans and Buddy Hield’s, who were able to create their own shot, aren’t there anymore. The closest thing you have to that, maybe is E’Twaun Moore. But even then, he sets up other players more than he gets his own shot. The same can be said for Tim Frazier.
That lineup doesn’t have a lot of shot creators. The closest thing is Jordan Crawford, but teams know he’s the closest thing to that and just guard him incredibly tough. And for a guy who’s capable of making a bunch of tricky shots, it’s still difficult to be the guy when you’re Jordan Crawford, who does not have all the skill set the guys in the big three have.
So I think it’s flawed. But it’s the end of the year, they’re probably out of the playoffs. And it’s Alvin Gentry’s best hope to try and keep games close.
Could it be better from a gaming perspective to keep all of those players separate, and have one of the big 3 on all the time?
Probably. But this is more setting up for the future, where you’re saying, okay, these three have to be the core of the team, so they have to be able to play together. They need to know what they’re doing, they need to know what works. They need to know what they shouldn’t be doing, and this is what the last ten games have been. Setting the three to be the core of the team going forward.