New Orleans Pelicans: Positives and Negatives from the Final Scrimmage

The New Orleans Pelicans took care of the ball against the Bucks.

Turnovers and Assists

Turnovers will be a key for the New Orleans Pelicans, as they are often careless with the ball, which leads to easy buckets on the other end. It is always a stat to watch with this young team.

The Good: The Pelicans only turned the ball over 11 times against the Bucks, which is well below their average. This number looks even better if you consider two of them were complete brain meltdowns by Josh Hart on back-to-back plays where he just got caught in the air and threw it to no one. No one on the Pelicans had more than two turnovers and only Ingram and Hart had that many. This shows how important turnovers are for the Pelicans on both ends. When they don’t turn the ball over, they don’t give up easy transition points, which has been a big problem all season. Limiting turnovers also balances out the poor 3-point shooting, as the Pels are not giving away possessions, and still get a shot at an offensive rebound when they do miss. The Pelicans defense is better than advertised but it starts with not turning the ball over so they can get back. If the Pels take care of the ball like they did last night, they’ll be in good shape.

The Bad: The Pelicans only had 22 assists in the final scrimmage, well below the 31 they averaged in the first two games. This is another stat that is indicative of how the Pelicans offense is going. When they are sharing the ball, and moving it from side to side, they get better, in rhythm shots that they usually knock down at a high rate. Even though most of their missed 3-pointers were uncontested, the Pels weren’t moving the ball well in the first half and were settling for the first open shot instead of the best one. When the Pelicans are going well, they will get at least 30 assists as a team, but last night they didn’t have anyone with more than three. Part of this was that the Pels weren’t able to get out and run against the Bucks’ defense, but there were also a lot of stagnant offensive sets in the half court, especially before Redick caught fire. The Pels must take care of the ball and share it to maximize their offense and defense.

The New Orleans Pelicans will happily go into the re-start undefeated and with some confidence. Scrimmage games might not count, but they were a great opportunity for the regulars to fine tune and for the young guys to get some reps.

On Thursday the games get real and the Pelicans are ready.