The New Orleans Pelicans are a baffling team.
I wrote yesterday that fans are unnecessarily angry about the Pels considering they are young rebuilding team being led by a 20-year-old.
The expectations were a tad high this season, especially when you consider the Pelicans have a new coach and had virtually no offseason or training camp to prepare.
While I don’t understand the anger, I totally get the frustration, as the Pelicans can look like one of the best teams in the NBA one night only to get beaten by a bottom feeder the next.
Sometimes it vacillates from quarter to quarter, as the Pelicans will put up 40 points one quarter then give up 40 the next one.
This type of inconsistency is to be expected from a young team, but the Pels have been playing up or down to their competition all year and that has to change.
New Orleans Pelicans: The Pels beat the good teams but lose to the bad ones
The New Orleans Pelicans can play with and beat any team in the NBA, that much is obvious. They have wins against the Bucks, Suns, Celtics, Clippers (2), Nuggets, Lakers and 76ers this season, all teams that are hoping to get to the NBA Finals.
The Pelicans always seem to step up and play their best, most focused basketball against the best teams in the league, which is good.
The problem is that they have also lost games to the Rockets, Thunder, Timberwolves, Kings, Bulls and Pistons, some of which are tanking and not even trying to win.
The Pelicans think they can just show up against the bad teams in the NBA and get a win and are quickly discovering that isn’t true.
The difference between making the playoffs this season and not has been the Pelicans’ frustrating habit of playing down to their competition.
Lonzo Ball is a good example of this, as he recently had one of his worst games of the season in a loss to the Wizards but then put up back-to-back stellar performances against the Spurs and Clippers.
It hasn’t been just Lonzo who has been inconsistent, the whole team seems to play with a complete lack of focus when they are going up against a team with less talent, and there is no coasting in the NBA.
The Pelicans will likely be watching the playoffs from home this season and if they want to know why, it’s because they have taken bad losses against bad teams.
You have to bring the same level of intensity every night in the NBA if you want to be a playoff team in the loaded Western Conference, a lesson the Pels are learning the hard way.