New Orleans Pelicans: 3 Overreactions to the 98-95 win over the Spurs
The New Orleans Pelicans hung on to beat the San Antonio Spurs despite using only eight players.
It wasn’t pretty but the New Orleans Pelicans were able to grind out a 98-95 win over the division rival San Antonio Spurs in the first home game of the season.
It was an ugly game from the start, with both teams looking like they’d had too much egg nog but the Pelicans were able to overcome some cold shooting early on to take a halftime lead.
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They built that lead to 14 during a hot 3rd quarter but then the bench gave it all back (more on that in a minute) before the Pels were finally able to put it away with their crunch time lineup.
So far Stan Van Gundy has been deploying Josh Hart with the starters in crunch time, which is probably their best lineup except for having only one good free throw shooter in Brandon Ingram.
This came into play when Steven Adams missed two free throws late to give San Antonio a chance to tie.
It was ugly but a win is a win and it was nice to see the Pels get a “W” behind their defense and rebounding. Here are my overreactions, starting with the good stuff.
New Orleans Pelicans: Overreactions to 98-95 win over the San Antonio Spurs
Overreaction #1: The Brandon Ingram/Steven Adams Pick-and-Roll is Unstoppable!!
This really isn’t an overreaction.
The combination of Adams’ space clearing screens and Ingram’s proficiency from the mid-range, make this play very difficult to defend.
The Pels went to it over and over late in the game, with Adams clearing out defenders so B.I. could enjoy wide-open 18 footers which he can hit all day long.
Lonzo Ball got in on the action as well, using Adams’ screens to get himself some open looks.
Those shots are going to be there all the time, so if the Pelicans continue to knock them down it can be their go-to play when the 3-pointers aren’t falling.
Now on to the negatives.