New Orleans Pelicans: 3 reasons the Pels are trending downward

The New Orleans Pelicans have started 5-9, which is not what fans had in mind at the beginning of the season.

Part of this is that the Pels have a new coach, some new faces, had a short offseason and have had one of the most difficult schedules in the NBA.

Only 3 of their 14 games featured opponents that are not playoff contenders and the Pels have already played both LA teams and caught the Utah Jazz in the middle of a red-hot streak.

The Pels’ schedule will start to lighten up a bit, which should help, but they also have to play much better, it’s that simple.

After starting the season 4-2 the Pelicans have been terrible, so what exactly is causing this downward trend?

New Orleans Pelicans: Where do the Pelicans rank defensively?

Defense

Stan Van Gundy was hired to fix the Pelicans’ woeful defense and for a few games, it appeared as though he might have.

The Pelicans were one of the worst defensive teams in the league last season and SVG’s goal was to get them into the top-ten.

Through the first few games they were, and the narrative around the team was that an improved defense would be the key to the playoffs.

Since then, the narrative has changed.

In the last eight games, the Pelicans are allowing 118.1 points per game, even worse than last season. They have fallen to 24th in the league overall, and if you remove the game where the lowly Thunder scored 80 points, the Pels are dead last.

It’s been a collective effort, as they are playing poor individual defense and are also having big breakdowns as a team.

Steven Adams has played well defensively, as has Josh Hart, though he is mostly playing out of of position. Other than that, the Pelicans’ defenders have been awful, which is something that has to change if they want to turn this season around.