New Orleans Pelicans: Grades for blowout loss vs. Warriors

New Orleans Pelicans vs. Timberwolves: Grades for the bigs

This was a bad game to be a New Orleans Pelicans big.

Willy Hernangómez didn’t do much wrong really, but he also didn’t do anything to stop the Warriors’ offensive onslaught. The Spanish big was a team-low -17 in his 25 minutes of game time and, while this loss is obviously not on him, he just isn’t built to make an impact in these types of games.

Hernangómez was fine offensively, making four of his five shots, but he was overwhelmed by the speed of the Warriors’ attack on the other end of the floor. Stan Van Gundy turned to Zion Williamson at the 5 to end the game, which didn’t go much better but is an interesting alternative ahead of Tuesday.

Jaxson Hayes had a bad game that is easy to overlook because of his ultimately positive stats.

Hayes went 4-of-4 from the field, but all four of those makes came in the fourth quarter when the game was more or less decided. Even worse, three of his baskets came in the final two minutes of the game. At that point, everyone knew that the Warriors had won.

Besides a nice lob in transition, Hayes didn’t do anything offensively to make himself an option. On defense, he struggled to protect the rim and, if this was a playoff series, I doubt he would see too much game time.

One particular stretch stands out to me where Hayes got scored on by Kevon Looney and Jordan Poole, both using the same spin move, in consecutive fashion.