The New Orleans Pelicans built a 19 point lead against the Washington Wizards last night only to watch it disappear in the second half.
This is a familiar tale for the Pelicans, who reverted to some bad habits down the stretch and gave away a game they probably should have won.
The offense is going to struggle at times with Zion Williamson on the bench, but the Pelicans have been getting out to fast starts and just not maintaining them.
A quick look at the numbers shows a team that gets worse as the game goes on, which is something Willie Green is going to have to address.
Whether its an issue of conditioning or execution, the New Orleans Pelicans are losing games in the second half.
New Orleans Pelicans: Scoring by quarter
The New Orleans Pelicans have been getting out to decent starts in most of their games, they just aren’t finishing them.
They are scoring 27.7 points per game in the 1st quarter, which is 11th in the NBA, not spectacular, but in the top half of the league.
Things start to get worse in the 2nd, when the Pels average 25.4 points per game, which is just 27th in the NBA.
But it gets worse from there, as 3rd quarters are where the Pelicans have really been blowing it. They average just 23.3 points in the third, which is just 28th in the NBA.
Their 25.7 points per 4th quarter is slightly better at 21st in the league, but by then the game is usually lost.
The Pelicans only have a positive margin in the 1st quarter and are -1.2 in the second, -4.5 in the third and -4.1 in the fourth.
When you are losing 2nd halves by an average of 8.6 points per game, you aren’t going to win many of them.
Obviously all of these numbers will improve once you inject Zion Williamson’s 27 points per game into them, but the Pelicans still have to get better at executing in the 2nd half on both ends, as they are giving away games with poor half court offense and and porous defense.