New Orleans Pelicans: Defense against the Suns is the way forward

New Orleans Pelicans: How the Pels stopped the Phoenix Suns

The first thing to note in the Pelicans’ win was how improved the collective team defense was. Van Gundy said after the game that this was the Pelicans’ showing this year and, although New Orleans’ win over the Milwaukee Bucks comes to mind in terms of offensive firepower, it certainly did not seem like they had the same defensive dominion.

The  New Orleans Pelicans held the Suns to 101 points, garbage time included, which is about 11 points less than what the Pelicans concede to teams on average.

In the clip above, Devin Booker tries to use the screen Deandre Ayton sets for him. Steven Adams and Lonzo Ball do a great job navigating this, with Adams stepping out hard to contain Booker and Ball staying with the play. Meanwhile, Brandon Ingram rotates to not give Booker an open pass to Ayton.

This forces Booker to try a highly difficult skip pass to Mikal Bridges. The pass is inaccurate, but Josh Hart comes over anyways and closes out with high hands to force the miss. If Bridges had gotten a wide-open three, it would have likely cut the Pelicans’ lead to single digits at an important stretch in the game.

This sequence shows trust and belief in what the Pelicans want to do defensively. It’s not something we have seen a lot this season, but New Orleans has the length, athleticism, and know-how to do this every single game.

I also want to use this play to praise Ingram and Ball in particular.

Ingram makes the right rotation to Ayton at first, but also scrambles back to Jae Crowder just in case Booker’s pass comes off. Van Gundy has mentioned over the last few days that everything starts with his best players—purportedly Ingram and Zion Williamson—and Ingram held up his part of the bargain against the Suns.