After Christmas Day games, Denver leads the West by a game over the Pels and Grizzlies, with the Suns and Clippers 3 games back. Pels hold the tiebreaker over the Grizz. Indiana in the SKC tonight; Zion is expected to be back in the lineup, with Larry Nance Jr listed as questionable. BI still out.
Pelicans 113, Pacers 93, No Ingram, Zion, Murphy, Jones or Daniels; that's 75 points missing from the lineup, and what was left absolutely destroyed the visitors from Indiana. Larry Nance returned after missing 3 games and it was immediately obvious how much we missed his defense and board work. Willie Green rotated Jonas, Nance, Jaxon and Hernangomez liberally and they owned the paint. And the unselfish play on offense was beautiful, Pels had 30 assists as a team and everyone who logged minutes had at least one. One other note; Kyra Lewis got his first meaningful minutes of the year and looked awfully good. Down a half game to Denver with Minnesota coming in Wednesday. Zion should be back (holding him out was a game time decision).
pelicans are pretty deep and win without their best players, thats impressive. unrelated to the pelicans in particular: i think the most exciting players to watch are zion, doncic, morant, and jokic. it strikes me that if yugoslavia were still a country they might win the world title. doncic (slovenia) and jokic (serbia) would be unstoppable. surely a team europe with those guys plus gobert and antekekounpo would smash everyone. my hope is that US soccer players begin to domnate in euope they way these euros are here dominating americans in hoops
Coach Willie classifies Zion, Murphy and Daniels as "probable" for Wednesday. BI: "Progressing, not there yet."
prescient i bring up luka and the former yugolavian players and immediately luka drops the first 60-20-10 game in NBA history on the knicks.
Agree with you on Zion and Jokic. Refs swallow their whistles when Ja is on the floor (any other point guard would get at least 3 travelling or carrying calls a game) and can't wait to blow it when Luca gets the ball. Along with Lebron, the two most protected players in the NBA. American athletes will never embrace soccer until its taken seriously at the youth level. Kids get treated like kings playing USSSA travel baseball, AAU basketball or 7-on-7 football. I don't know what the money is like in professional American soccer, but the kids aren't steered in that direction to begin with.
Pelicans 119, T-Wolves 118. A sloppy night offensively and played from behind most of the game, but Zion just refused to lose. Scored the Pels' last 14 points to bring them back from 9 down in the closing minutes. That run included a 3 and a steal and slam to give them the lead in the final minute. In the last 10 seconds, Dyson Daniels had an offensive rebound that led to Zion hitting a go-ahead FT, and then D'd up Anthony Edwards to deny him a good look at a potential game winning shot. A career-high 43 for Zion, 21 for Murphy, who has found his range again, 20 for CJ. Tied with Denver for the West lead now with a huge back-to-back coming up. Host Philly Friday, then travel to Memphis Saturday.
another team complained zion is bowling people over and getting fouls called in his favor. i can see their point. the biggest flaw in basketball is the seemingly arbitrary at times blocking/charging foul. i can never tell which it will be and it seems fairly random. coach mcmahon also says this dynamic is broken. he said it was dangerous for the players. i think what he meant is that defensive fouls are always given so players never stop playing into hard contact. i am not sure what he meant exactly. for sure they give zion calls when he is knocking everyone over. he is unstoppable just finished off philly. dominating.
