New Orleans Pelicans: Grades for undermanned loss vs. Hawks

New Orleans Pelicans vs. Hawks: Grades for the bigs

Jaxson Hayes played fairly well in his second start of the season for the New Orleans Pelicans.

With Steven Adams out, the second-year center got a bigger role in Stan Van Gundy’s rotation. In the first few minutes of the first quarter alone, he had already gotten himself quite the highlight package. First, a big putback slam and, then, an incredible lob finish.

Words won’t do it justice, but it was incredibly impressive how Hayes used all of his length to lean back and catch an extremely difficult pass from James Johnson. Hayes cocked his arm all the way back and then unleashed all of his athleticism on the poor rim.

Beyond that, the Texas big was fine, if not unremarkable, offensively. His free throws continue to go in and he had a take to the rim off the dribble that intrigued me. Hayes missed, but it flashed some of his potential.

It was defensively that I thought Hayes struggled a bit. Again, not all of this is on him, but the Pels struggled to defend pick-and-roll for the second consecutive night.

Willy Hernangómez did his thing on offense like always, but found things difficult on defense.

We know that Hernangómez can get buckets in limited minutes and his showing against the Hawks was no different. He scored nine points and got nine rebounds, providing the Pels with a bit of firepower off the bench.

But on defense, it was once again clear why Hernangómez has fallen out of Stan Van Gundy’s rotation. The problems were not exclusive to him, but they were more apparent when he was on the floor.

The Hawks got some joy running pick-and-roll because the weakside help didn’t exist a lot of the time, the guards struggled to get over screens, and the bigs were indecisive either sagging or coming up to help. Hernangómez in particular struggled with this.

Wenyen Gabriel fans rejoice.

Once again, the big man from South Sudan got some playing time. In truth, Gabriel can fluctuate between playing as a wing or as a big, but I thought he fit into the latter category a bit more against the Hawks.

Gabriel played 11 minutes due to the Pelicans’ vast amount of injuries. He only took one shot and missed it, but he played his heart out when he was on the court. Gabriel crashed the boards, flew around on defense, and ran the floor hard.

Let’s see if he continues to get some minutes going forward or if Van Gundy prefers to give Will Magnay a shot at cracking the rotation.