New Orleans Pelicans: The Return Of Anthony Davis
By Tim Burke
New Orleans Pelicans: The Return of Anthony Davis
What was the best highlight of the game? Moment?
This game was full of action and the best highlight was a tight race. There were plenty of alley-oops that made it seem like the Lakers were playing a live-action version of 2K. Kyle Kuzma also had a shot at this award, as he made four three-pointers in the game, many with a defender in his face.
But the best highlight award goes to the Jrue Holiday lay up at 1:57 left in the third quarter.
The play starts with Jahlil Okafor with the ball outside the three-point line and hands the ball off the Holiday near the end of the announcers’ table. Holiday bobbles the catch, with Rondo on his back, as he’s going to the sideline. Once he gets possession of the ball he puts his head down and starts driving towards the basket.
Two dribbles later and Holiday is surrounded by four Lakers, Rondo, AD, Caruso, and Troy Daniels. Jrue puts the ball in his left hand and starts to scoop the ball towards the rim from just outside of the paint. He banks the ball off the glass and in and the Pelicans led by 15 after the make.
The moment of the game came from the combination of Anthony Davis and Alex Caruso. In four seconds, the Lakers got four points. It all begins with an inbound play after an official review of whether Kuzma or Ingram touched the ball last. It was determined the Ingram was the last to touch it and the Lakers got the ball by the edge of the coaching box.
LeBron lobs the ball toward the basket as Davis starts flying to the rim. AD catches it and slams it home for two points. On the ensuing inbound by New Orleans, Holiday is stripped by Caruso and the ball bounces right to Davis who is still near the basket. Davis dunks it again and the Lakers scored four points in four seconds to start knocking on the door of a comeback.
The New Orleans Pelicans will need to avoid these types of turnovers if they want to have a chance at NBA Disney.
What was the main takeaway?
The main takeaway from this game for me was how fun a playoff series between these two teams would be. There’s enough bad blood from the New Orleans fans towards LA, from Kobe winning the MVP over Chris Paul in 2008 to the nixed Chris Paul trade and finally the Davis trade in the summer of 2019.
This game was played without three key members of the Pelicans roster (Zion, Lonzo, and Favors) and still was only a four-point win for LA where the Pelicans had a chance to win or tie with five seconds left in the game.
While this was the closest game between the two teams that they would play all year, there’s a case to be made that New Orleans offers much more of a challenge to LA than Memphis does.