The New Orleans Pelicans are a frustrating team.
They range from “lottery awful” to “title contender” often within the same game, playing like garbage for a few minutes only to look like the 1996 Bulls the next.
This is to be expected with a young team with a poorly constructed roster even though Zion Williamson continues to have an All-NBA caliber season.
Almost all of the Pelicans’ problems were on display against the Chicago Bulls, who are a middling team in the terrible Eastern Conference that has now beat the Pelicans twice.
You can’t lose these types of games and expect to the make the playoffs and the Pels have the maddening habit of playing down to their opponent.
After beating the team with the best record in the NBA the game before, the Pelicans came out flat against the Bulls, highlighting some of their biggest issues along the way.
New Orleans Pelicans: The Pels don’t care about defense
What more can you say about the Pelicans’ defense except that it is absolutely terrible?
The Pels are currently 29th in the NBA in defensive rating, just above the Kings, two teams whose defensive strategy seems to be “Let’s hope they miss a lot of wide-open shots and layups.”
Stan Van Gundy was disgusted with his team’s effort, saying after the game:
"“One of our problems is our guys will beat themselves up about missing shots, missing free throws, all of that, but the defensive stuff just doesn’t get to them in the same way,” Van Gundy said. “It doesn’t bother them that we gave up 128 points tonight. … I’m not sure individual players are holding themselves accountable for the right things.”"
This is the problem with the New Orleans Pelicans in a nutshell, lack of priorities and effort. They just don’t seem to care about defense outside of a few guys and this is something that has to change.
If your two stars aren’t going to play defense, then everyone else has to, and right now, that is not happening. We could see some big changes at the trade deadline and if every move isn’t to improve the defense, then David Griffin should be on the hot seat.
New Orleans Pelicans: Free throws and 3-point shots
For a team that is 4th overall in scoring, the New Orleans Pelicans can’t shoot.
Basically, if they are taking a shot that is eight feet or closer they are the best team in the NBA, but anything outside of that and they are one of the worst.
This was once again on display last night, as the Pels were a pathetic 6-of-22 from behind-the-arc for 27 percent. The Pels are 17th overall in the NBA this season after coming in 4th in 3-point percentage just last season.
What happened? They have nearly the exact same team, so it’s inexplicable that the Pels would drop off this much from behind-the-arc.
For starters, J.J. Redick and Josh Hart have been awful, highlighting a bench that has been one of the worst in the NBA.
Even though the Pels have three guys hitting near or over 40 percent, the rest of the team is broke.
One thing that hasn’t changed is the Pelicans’ free-throw shooting, which continues to be near the bottom of the NBA. The Pelicans are shooting just 73 percent, good for 28th overall in the league.
They were 26-of-38 against the Bulls, just 68.4 percent and missed three crucial ones down the stretch that probably cost them the game.
The Pelicans had a nice comeback but it is hard to put games away when pretty much the entire team stinks from the free-throw line.
New Orleans Pelicans: The Pels’ big swings
If there is anything that exemplifies this season more than anything else, it’s the wild swings the New Orleans Pelicans often have from quarter to quarter.
The Pelicans will sometimes look like one of the worst teams in the NBA one quarter, then score 45 points in the next one.
The same happened last night against the Bulls, as the Pels were down as many as 19 points before storming back in the 4th quarter, scoring 45 points and nearly pulling off the comeback.
It’s nice that the Pels don’t give up and it’s nice to know they have those kinds of quarters in them, but they have blown leads and been down by double-digits in nearly every game this season.
This comes down to their youth and inconsistency, but it also comes down to focus and effort.
The Pelicans often just coast on defense as if they can make it up on the other end. This is not how the NBA works, as just about every team can fill it up offensively and will torch you if the defensive effort is not consistently there.
The Pelicans routinely give up 120+ points, so it doesn’t matter that they are an offensive juggernaut at times because just about every team looks like peak Warriors against he Pelicans’ awful defense.
The big swings come from game to game for the Pels but even from quarter to quarter.
They simply have to be more consistent, to actually care about defense for an entire game and to take care of the little things like free throws if they want to sniff the playoffs this season.