A Christmas Miracle: New Orleans Pelicans Snap Denver’s Winning Streak
By Tim Burke
New Orleans Pelicans: Highlights and Takeaways
What was the highlight from the game? Biggest moment?
The highlight of the game comes courtesy of one J.J. Redick.
With 4.6 seconds left in the second quarter, Derrick Favors pulled down the rebound on a missed dunk/runner by Will Barton. Once Redick sees that Favors secured the ball he breaks up the court. Favors hits Redick while he’s running near the three-point line.
Redick collects the ball and sets his feet on the logo as Monte Morris makes his move to contest the shot. While going up Redick changes his release point to get the ball around Morris’ outstretched arms and heaves it with one second left.
Related Story. Where does J.J. Redick rank among active shooters?. light
As the ball flies and the tenths of a second tick off, you can feel what’s going to happen. Redick put a little too much on it, the ball sailed right past the rim and smacked into the backboard and banked right in the basket. Count it.
This culminated a really good run from Redick who scored 13 points in the second quarter after struggling in the first.
The biggest moment came late in the fourth quarter. Some very good ball movement resulted in a wide open look from three for Lonzo Ball. As mentioned earlier, Lonzo struggled from the floor in this game, but on this possession he drained it to stretch the lead nine with 4:14 to play.
It’s the biggest moment because the shot came late in the game when the team had a chance to put the game away for good.
What was the main takeaway from this game?
This team can be really good when playing fast and moving the ball. Under Alvin Gentry the New Orleans Pelicans play with the second fastest pace in the NBA, behind only Milwaukee. For a team with as many young players this is a good strategy to get them more shots.
While they are getting more shots because they play fast it wouldn’t matter if the shots weren’t going in. The Pelicans have made huge strides in that area this season, as a team they are shooting 37.2% from three good for fifth in the NBA.
Compared to last year, New Orleans is shooting nearly three percent better from distance (37.2 in 2019-20 vs 34.4 in 2018-19). While that percentage may seem small, that jump was enough to move the Pelicans up nearly 20 spots, from 24th to 5th, in three point percentage across the league.