Stephen Curry might have put the final dent in the New Orleans Pelicans’ play-in tournament aspirations.
A blowout 123-108 loss at the hands of the Golden State Warriors means that the Pelicans are now three and a half games behind making the play-in tournament. Whereas a win would have reignited the Pels’ hopes until the end of the regular season, this defeat appears to definitively extinguish them.
It was once again a lackluster performance from New Orleans on national television. This bafflingly consistently inconsistent team continues to provide memorable moments. At times, the Pelicans can blow out a championship contender. On other occasions, they are hand-delivering Curry his ninth 40+ point game of the season and letting him make more threes than the entire Pelicans team combined.
The Pelicans weren’t up to scratch for the entire game. At one point in the first quarter, Curry had 17 points to New Orleans’ total of 19. Stan Van Gundy’s squad more or less hung around for most of the game, but it was always a manageable lead for the Warriors.
They were never put under pressure in a must-win game for the Pelicans, which is quite the indictment on a team that often fails to play with the necessary urgency.
The Pelicans will face Golden State again on Tuesday night as part of a back-to-back, but the importance of the contest will have diminished. A win would still be nice, but it looks like it will ultimately prove to be fruitless.
Here are the player grades for the Pels’ loss against the Warriors, starting with my personal MVP:
New Orleans Pelicans vs. Golden State Warriors: Grading the best player
Nobody had a truly incredible night, but Zion Williamson was the best Pelicans player by some margin.
Williamson tried to keep New Orleans in the game during most of the first half, even if it was to no avail by the end of the night. His stats were impressive and worthy of the NBA x Marvel collaboration. His airball with the smoke trail effect is worth laughing at, but Williamson once again played very well and it’s a shame that he most likely will not experience his first postseason this year.
The Pelicans’ all-star finished with 32 points, eight rebounds, two blocks, and an assist. Golden State deserves some credit for making Williamson work hard for his points, but he closed his night on 50 percent shooting.
But for all his points, Williamson also was not as dominant as we have seen him be. He intermittently failed to convert around the basket, his defense continues to need work, and he had four turnovers. That’s why he gets a B+ rather than going into A territory.
New Orleans Pelicans vs. Warriors: Grades for the guards
A terrible game for Lonzo Ball after his career-high 33 points versus the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Ball “picked” a bad time to have this sort of game, with it being on national television and also coming off the back of an interview in which he said he saw himself becoming an all-star soon. Like I wrote recently, Ball still has to become a lot more consistent—ditto for this New Orleans Pelicans team.
The Pels’ point guard contributed with eight assists, seven rebounds, and two steals, but he was off the mark on offense all night. Ball truly struggled to score, making just one of his nine threes and finishing 3-of-18 from field overall.
Defensively, he was okay but it’s tough to shower him with praise after watching Steph Curry drop 41 points. Ball competed hard, but he just didn’t make enough of an impact.
Hopefully he bounces back on Tuesday.
Eric Bledsoe was better on offense than on defense, for me.
He had a poor start to the game, but turned things around starting in the second quarter. Bledsoe went on a little bit of a run by himself to keep the Pelicans in the game at the half, with a nice pass, a finish in transition, and a self-created and-1.
The former Bucks guard was then solid for the rest of the game, even if it was just glorified garbage time by the end. Bledsoe was aggressive getting downhill, like we’ve seen in recent games, and looked to get himself to the free throw line quite often.
Down the other end of the floor, I thought Bledsoe struggled to make an impact. He looked gassed having to chase Golden State’s players and didn’t do much to deter their backcourt.
Kira Lewis Jr. played just seven minutes against the Warriors, a stark contrast to his season average of 16 minutes per game.
I’m not sure what the reasoning behind this decision was, but you have to think that it might have to do with the complexities of Golden State’s offense coming too early on the defensive end for the Pels rookie. During his time on the court, Lewis took and missed one shot.
The Pelicans could have used his jolt of energy off the bench, so let’s see if he plays a bigger role in Tuesday’s rematch.
New Orleans Pelicans vs. Timberwolves: Grades for the wings
A really weird game for Brandon Ingram, who played as passive as we’ve seen him be all season.
Ingram wasn’t necessarily bad and he mostly made the right decisions, but the New Orleans Pelicans could have used a lot more from their second franchise player. I thought that the one-time all-star would come into this game fired up after a poor outing against the Timberwolves; instead, he only took 11 shots and failed to assert himself.
Ingram tied his season-low in field goal attempts against the Warriors. He got to the line eight times and converted on all of his free throws, but it felt like Golden State never really had to worry about him. Part of that is also because Andrew Wiggins did a good job on Ingram defensively.
After two meh games, it’s time for him to have a big night.
I thought Naji Marshall was probably the Pelicans’ second-best player against the Warriors.
Marshall provided some punch off the bench and saw his production go up compared to the last few games. Part of that is also because the former Xavier man simply got more time on the court (27 minutes compared to averaging 19 over the previous three games).
The New Orleans wing was everything Ingram wasn’t. He was energetic and aggressive, constantly trying to slash to the rim and put pressure on the Warriors’ basket. It didn’t always work out, but Marshall had 12 points and also made a couple of threes.
Defensively, he looked engaged, but no one was capable of stopping Golden State on this given night.
A mixed night for James Johnson, who mostly did what he was supposed to do but just failed to put the ball in the hoop.
Johnson was 3-of-10 from the field, but he honestly should have probably ended up with double digit scoring. He was taking the right decisions most of the time, but when he got to the rack, he just wasn’t converting on his lay-ups. Johnson missed too many bunnies that could have made this game much closer.
A C grade might seem high for him, but his run with the Pels so far proves to me that Johnson is able to make these shots and add value to the team. He didn’t against the Warriors, but I thought he provided some good minutes—at least in theory—and that he will be a handy rotation player to avenge this loss.
Wenyen Gabriel, Wes Iwundu, and James Nunnally got about two minutes of garbage time, but didn’t do anything worth commenting on.
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.