Pelicans: Rebounds, Zion Williamson weren’t enough to overcome defense

New Orleans Pelicans: The defense was terrible

Now that the glamour stats are out of the way, it’s time to take a gander at the Pels on defense.

The hard part with defensive stats is that even NBA teams have a hard time quantifying and understanding them very well. So we’re taking a look at this knowing the publically available date only offers a partial picture, not the whole thing.

Let’s start with the main box score stats for the Pels defense. This chart will look at the points allowed, steals, blocks, and fouls and will show the Pels average per game, league rank, and total.

Well, not a lot of good to choose from in there; the best thing about the Pels defense is they didn’t foul very much. After that though, things look a little bleak. The Pels are just league average when it comes to getting steals, although that’s not necessarily a bad thing if they were taking risks by trying to swipe the ball at inopportune times that can lead to easy baskets or fouls.

The same goes for blocks, picking the wrong time to go for a block leaves you out of position and the defense vulnerable. So while the lower block and steal rates aren’t great you could say the Pels were staying in a good position and not biting on fakes or taking chances to get a steal.

Where that falls apart however is the points allowed per game, you don’t want to be in the bottom ten on this rating. New Orleans was four points per game above the worst defense in the league (Washington) while they were ten points away from the top (New York). So the defense wasn’t taking unnecessary chances but they also weren’t forcing the offense into that many tough looks.