New Orleans Pelicans: Positives and Negatives from Win over the Nuggets

New Orleans Pelicans: Which bench players stepped up?

The Reserves

One of the things to watch in these scrimmage games is which fringe rotation players step up and potentially earn a spot in the rotation.

The New Orleans Pelicans are talented and deep, that much is evident, but who made a case for themselves in game two?

The Good: When Frank Jackson and Kenrich Williams were in the game, it was evident. Both of them brought defensive intensity, ran the floor hard and were generally nuisances for the Denver Nuggets.

Jackson showed his value defensively, guarding bigger players all night, including a stretch where he held his own against Jokic. He was aggressive with the ball and didn’t hesitate to launch open shots when he got them. He ended the night with 16 points and four assists, knocking down 3 of 8 from long-range. Jackson can be a weapon off the bench and may have earned some run after last night.

Same for Kenrich Williams, who ended the night with four points, six rebounds and five assists. Williams was flying all over the place, crashing the glass and he too defended much larger players for most of the game. Williams and Jackson add something that this team desperately needs, which is a defensive identity.

The Bad: NAW once again led the team in scoring, shots and minutes and added four rebounds and five assists to go along with his 21 points. He was better than in the first game, but is still very inefficient, needing 19 shots to get his 21 points. His handles were shaky again and he had four turnovers, mostly in the second half when he was asked to handle the ball more.

One thing has been made clear in the first two scrimmages: NAW is not ready to be the primary ball handler off the bench. He is better and more effective off the ball and really needs to work on his ball handling in the offseason.

There isn’t much more to say about a game that featured lineups we are never going to see again, but we did learn a few things.

The final scrimmage on Monday will likely be more of a normal game and Gentry may tip his hand about rotations as we get closer to the real deal.

A scrimmage is just a scrimmage, but it’s always nice to get the W and keep the momentum going towards the playoffs.