New Orleans Pelicans come back to beat Bulls late in Chicago

In their second game of the preseason, the New Orleans Pelicans trailed the Chicago Bulls by as many as 23, but hung on to win their second straight.

Last night in Chicago, the New Orleans Pelicans looked a lot closer to reality than the team we saw on Monday against the Atlanta Hawks. In Atlanta, they were able to cruise to a healthy victory after trailing by one in the first.

Tonight, the Chicago Bulls gave the Pelicans a heck of a fight, leading for a majority of the time their core players were on the floor.

All night long, the team had a hard time finding ways to stop the Chicago Bulls potent offense, which mostly seemed to be running through their stars Zach LaVine and Lauri Markkanen.

The towering Markkanen scored 12 points and shot 2-of-6 from three, but the Pelicans were lucky it wasn’t worse; Markkanen facilitated his team’s offense and the New Orleans defense wasn’t ready for that attack.

New Orleans, fortunately, boasts their own unique scoring forward. Just as he did in their first game, Zion Williamson was attacking the rim and no one seemed to have a clue how to shut to down for Chicago.

Lonzo Ball had ups and downs against the Bulls, scoring 2 points, but looking fluid as a passer all night, logging 9 assists.

Navigating the lane with some ease, though in a less rim-destroying way than Monday, Zion went 12-of-13 from the floor, scoring 29 points. The effort came with only 3 rebounds and 1 steal, but his ability to destroy the Bulls inside was the Pelicans’ best chance to stay in a game where their shots weren’t falling.

What killed them through three quarters was an outburst from LaVine, who couldn’t be held in check by Jrue Holiday, or really any defender Alvin Gentry threw his way. The scoring guard finished with 28 points, shooting 10-of-16 from the floor, leading the Bulls in scoring.

Last night, the Pelicans just had a really hard time keeping up with Chicago in the first half. The Pelicans shot 4-of-14 from deep through the first 24 minutes of the basketball game.

Everything turned in a big fourth quarter for the New Orleans Pelicans bench

With a 23-point gap staring them in the face late in the third quarter, Alvin Gentry and his coaching staff decided it was time to let the bench log their preseason minutes.

The star of the comeback was Nickeil Alexander-Walker, who played a healthy portion of his 19 minutes in the fourth quarter when the Pelicans offense exploded.

Making the bench unit look great for Alvin Gentry, Alexander-Walker scored 14 points with 7 assists and 2 rebounds. Key to the Pelicans’ ability to survive in the last stretch of the game, the rookie seems like he’ll push for minutes early in the 2019-2020 NBA season.

Jahlil Okafor was key to the comeback and had a second impressive preseason performance. Taking Chicago Bulls’ center Cristiano Felicio to school, he scored 13 points with 3 rebounds, going 5-of-5 from the floor.

Through two games, Okafor has made a noticeable positive impact on this Pelicans team in is showing Gentry a lot of reasons to give him good minutes to start the 2019-2020 slate.

New Orleans couldn’t help but overwhelm the Bulls in the fourth quarter. Outscoring them 41-18 in the final frame, the team got its shooting percentage up to 54.5 (44-of-88).

It seemed only Coby White, Chicago’s own standout rookie, might spurn the comeback once it got going. The big-haired point guard played well, scoring 13 points with 3 assists and 3 rebounds, but pushed their team’s up-tempo pace even late in the game.

Josh Hart played huge for the New Orleans Pelicans bench last night. Including making the three-pointer that tied the game at 125-125 with 1:34 left on the clock. He shot the ball very well, scoring 11 points and going 3-of-5 from three.

Alexander-Walker knocked a pair of free-throws home with 57.6 seconds left and no one scored again. The Pelicans found their way to poke a 127-125 victory out of a game where they trailed most of the night.

After two preseason games, the New Orleans Pelicans show a lot of promise as a whole, even if they showed flaws with their chemistry against the Chicago Bulls. Now, they’ll come home with a 2-0 preseason record to face the Utah Jazz for a Friday night match at the Smoothie King Center.