New Orleans Pelicans: Highs and lows from a wild week

New Orleans Pelicans: highlights and lowlights from the week

Highlight of the Week

For two weeks in a row, Jaxson Hayes take home this very prestigious award. The highlight comes from Sunday’s game against Denver, now I know many people may have missed this game to watch college basketball instead. But there’s no way you missed this highlight while scrolling on social media.

I don’t know what else there is to say about Hayes now that his dunks are finally finding their home in the basket and he’s placing defenders six feet under. We’ve seen the flashes of his amazing potential to dunk the ball with malicious intent but now he’s finishing those attempts and a single tear rolls down my cheek (it’s so beautiful). Put him in the dunk contest!

Lowlight of the week

This is starting to feel like Deja Vu. In a week that saw New Orleans go 2-1, there was really only one item to choose for this. Damian Lillard.

Man, he’s just been killing the Pels lately. Holding him to 36 points feels almost like a win, especially when we went off for 50 just a couple of nights before. Limiting Dame to zero assists is part of the recipe for beating the Blazers right now. Sadly, it wasn’t enough as the Pels let victory slip away and dropped back-to-back games against Portland. At least this wasn’t lost on free throws.

The Pels need to find a way to better defend against these guards who are capable of just detonating a defense’s plan. I know there are only a handful of guys capable of this but those guys are all making the playoffs. For New Orleans to stand a chance of advancing if/when they do make the playoffs, there needs to be a better way of handling these flamethrowers. The Pels have their own defense breaker in Zion, they need to devise a way to stop the others.