New Orleans Pelicans: Player Grades in 106-104 Loss to the Utah Jazz
New Orleans Pelicans: Player Grades for the power forwards.
Power Forwards
New Orleans Pelicans. NICOLO MELLI. D. . Power Forward
Was Nicolo Melli even in this game? If he was, it didn’t matter because he ended the night with the same number of points as me, and I had six beers and a full Po’ Boy in my stomach (still could have come off the sofa and got a bucket though).
Melli took just one shot in 14 minutes and there is again a solid argument that both of those numbers should have been much higher. We’ll get to the Derrick Favors/Alvin Gentry grades in just a minute, but on a night when Favors was struggling mightily to do anything, Melli should have played more. With Bojan Bogdanovic out, the Pels should have had a big advantage on the wing and the two-man game between he and Ingram should have been effective.
It’s too bad we never saw it. Melli needed to be more aggressive when he was in there, but he didn’t get much of a chance, which was probably a mistake. The Pels weren’t stopping the Jazz in the paint anyway and really could have used Melli’s shooting.
B. . Power Forward. New Orleans Pelicans. ZION WILLIAMSON
It was nice to have this back:
https://twitter.com/PelicansNBA/status/1288982446889893892
Zion played only 15 efficient minutes and ended the night with 13 points on six of eight shooting.
The New Orleans Pelicans clearly had a plan for Zion, which was to play him roughly the first three minutes of every quarter as he tries to get back into game shape after an eight-day layoff. I have no problem limiting Zion’s minutes, as he is too valuable to the Pelicans’ future to risk injury, but I have no clue why Gentry didn’t choose WHICH minutes to play him instead of just plugging him in at the beginning of quarters. There were times when the Pels were desperate for a hoop and Zion was unstoppable the few times he did get the ball.
This is on Gentry, as he simply didn’t adjust his game plan to fit the flow of the game. Hopefully Zion will be available for more run against the Clippers, as he was dynamic offensively. One thing to keep an eye on is Zion’s legs. He was limping a bit last night and something looked off about his gait when he was running the floor. Let’s hope there is not an issue going forward.
Gentry needs to pick and choose spots to use Zion as a weapon or not use him at all, as the entire team was taken in and out of its flow by Gentry’s weird substitutions.