New Orleans Pelicans: The Pels biggest problem was easy to predict

New Orleans Pelicans: The Pels blow a lot of leads

If you have watched many Pelicans’ games this season then you might have noticed a pattern.

The Pelicans tend to come out hot in the first quarter and have had some monster starts to games.

Brandon Ingram scores most of his points in the first quarter and often comes out firing. Zion Willamson has gotten off to some big starts as well, and the Pelicans have mostly played their best basketball in the first quarter.

Then the bench comes in.

Time and time again the Pelicans have blown double-digit leads when some version of their bench is in the game.

They tend to play more isolation-ball with Zion and Ingram and the bench unit, the ball stops moving and they stop stopping the other team.

By the time the starters are back in the game together, the whole feel of the game has often changed and the Pelicans go from being an energetic team flying all over the place to one that is stagnant and lacks chemistry.

Part of this is that the Pels are a young team still trying to learn the mental part of the game but the other is that their bench has been terrible and sucks the life out of the team.