New Orleans Pelicans vs. Orlando Magic Preview: Previous Matchups
Previous Matchup
Game 1 – 12/15/19, New Orleans 119 – Orlando 130
These teams only played once during the regular season and it resulted in the New Orleans Pelicans setting a new franchise record with 12 straight losses (sadly that would get broken). New Orleans was down one point at halftime but allowed Orlando to score 41 points in the third quarter to pull away.
Powering that third quarter for Orlando was some hot shooting from distance, as a team the Magic shot 6-10 from beyond the arc. The Magic’s three-point shooting was on the mark all night as they buried 17 three-pointers on 50% shooting from deep.
New Orleans had a quartet of players score at least 20 points (Holiday, Ingram, Redick, and Hart), which would seem to indicate the rim was wide enough for a beach ball when the Pelicans were on offense but only one bench player (Jaxson Hayes) scored in double-digits.
The Pelicans actually did shoot the ball better than Orlando (53.4% vs 51.7%), but the cause of the scoring discrepancy was the same thing that’s bitten New Orleans all season, turnovers. On the season the Pelicans have averaged 16.5 turnovers a game and this night was no different as the Pels had 17, some of which were the result of their fast paced play.
The Magic had just nine turnovers as a team, which was better than a normal night for Orlando. It’s a little surprising that the Pelicans couldn’t force more turnovers when Holiday, Lonzo, and Hart played at least 27 minutes, all three of them are above average in terms of steals and deflections among guards.
This was one of the last games that Jonathan Isaac would play during the regular season as he would get injured just a couple of weeks later on January 1st. He had an excellent game scoring 21 points and grabbing 11 rebounds while shooting a blistering 63.6% from the field.
Nikola Vucevic came back from injury with a really strong performance scoring 20 points in 29 minutes, he nearly had a double-double in the game as well. The impact that Issac and Vucevic had was needed as Aaron Gordon had another game below his standards.
A bit of New Orleans’ news from this night: D.J. Augustin a NOLA native had his high school jersey retired at Brother Martin High School. Augustin led his team to two state championships during his time there.