“ The first half was a great display of basketball. » After 24 minutes of play on the Sixers floor, Willie Green could rub his hands. Applied on both sides of the field against an opponent lacking their All-stars, Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey, their Pelicans quietly led… by 29 points (34-63) at the break.
The following ? Much less successful. Still leading by 23 points at the start of the last quarter, the visitors will find a way to scare themselves slightly by conceding a 12-0 in the last period. With only 40 points scored in the second act, the Pelicans had to settle for a more modest victory of 8 points (95-103).
“ A victory is a victory, we found a way to get through it at the end of the match. It's all that matters », says Brandon Ingram (17 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists) whose team had a lead of up to 35 points.
An end to the match marked by this huge counter from Zion Williamson in front of Kelly Oubre Jr. who went for a dunk in the hope of bringing his team to less than 10 points, with still three minutes to play. “ Z was fantastic on defense tonight. This counter was huge […] It helps a lot, this effort, this mentality is what we need for 48 minutes and when Z plays like that, he is very difficult to stop “, judge Willie Greenwhose interior finished with 23 points and 12 rebounds.
This victory in Philadelphia comes three days after a beating inflicted on the Raptors on their floor, including an untenable Trey Murphy from afar: +41! Just a few days earlier, NOLA players scored 27 points against the Pacers, tying a franchise record with 48 points scored in the first quarter alone.
Avoid the “play-in” box this time
We can also cite the big victory on the Knicks floor, on February 27, with a 23-point difference. A success followed by a “back-to-back” setback in Indiana. This good dynamic against the Eastern teams should allow the New Orleans franchise to achieve one of its objectives: to qualify directly for the playoffs, without going through the play-in box.
Willie Green raised this issue two weeks agoof importance ” to take a new step. This step, for us, is not to be in play-in. We can control our own destiny by accumulating as many victories as possible. » By stringing together these three victories in a row, his team (38v-25d) thus occupies 5th place in its conference, but is only two victories ahead of the Kings (36v-26d), 7th.
CJ McCollum recalled that by qualifying directly, his team would have a few days of rest to prepare for a possible first round. “ We haven't been able to do it over the last two years. When you play the play-in, you must enter the playoffs directly without resting. It makes things a little more difficult », Judged the playmaker, whose team came up against the Thunder last year, unlike the previous year with a play-in won against the Clippers.
With still 19 games ahead of them, the Pelicans have the cards in hand not to scare themselves. They could even reach the symbolic milestone of 50 victories in the regular season, which would be a first since 2008. “ We'll see, I like this number. If we can achieve it, that would be great. “, said Green, optimistically.
| Shots | Rebounds | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | MJ | Min | Shots | 3pts | L.F. | Off | Def | Early | Pd | Bp | Int | Ct | Party | Pts |
| Zion Williamson | 51 | 30.5 | 57.6 | 38.5 | 68.7 | 1.7 | 3.8 | 5.5 | 5.2 | 2.6 | 0.9 | 0.5 | 2.3 | 22.0 |
| Brandon Ingram | 56 | 33.2 | 49.2 | 35.9 | 80.6 | 0.7 | 4.3 | 5.0 | 5.8 | 2.6 | 0.8 | 0.6 | 2.3 | 21.7 |
| Cj Mccollum | 46 | 31.4 | 45.7 | 42.2 | 79.4 | 0.6 | 3.7 | 4.3 | 4.5 | 1.5 | 1.0 | 0.7 | 2.1 | 18.7 |
| Trey Murphy III | 37 | 27.0 | 43.9 | 37.6 | 75.3 | 0.6 | 3.5 | 4.2 | 1.8 | 0.4 | 0.9 | 0.5 | 1.2 | 13.7 |
| Jonas Valanciunas | 62 | 25.2 | 56.8 | 36.5 | 79.8 | 2.6 | 6.9 | 9.5 | 2.2 | 1.4 | 0.4 | 1.0 | 2.8 | 13.4 |
| Herb Jones | 57 | 29.3 | 51.5 | 43.6 | 85.2 | 1.1 | 2.5 | 3.6 | 2.5 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 0.8 | 2.9 | 11.5 |
| Jordan Hawkins | 55 | 19.5 | 39.0 | 37.0 | 85.3 | 0.5 | 2.1 | 2.6 | 1.2 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 1.2 | 9.1 |
| Matt Ryan | 19 | 18.4 | 45.2 | 47.1 | 92.9 | 0.3 | 1.7 | 2.1 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 1.5 | 7.7 |
| Naji Marshall | 50 | 18.9 | 44.9 | 36.6 | 78.5 | 0.9 | 2.6 | 3.6 | 2.0 | 1.1 | 0.7 | 0.2 | 1.4 | 7.0 |
| Jose Alvarado | 41 | 17.1 | 41.4 | 35.2 | 67.5 | 0.4 | 1.8 | 2.2 | 2.0 | 0.8 | 1.1 | 0.3 | 1.5 | 7.0 |
| Dyson Daniels | 52 | 21.9 | 43.8 | 29.1 | 64.0 | 1.0 | 2.7 | 3.7 | 2.6 | 1.0 | 1.4 | 0.4 | 1.6 | 5.5 |
| Larry Nance, Jr. | 44 | 18.4 | 58.9 | 42.6 | 71.8 | 1.5 | 3.7 | 5.2 | 1.6 | 0.9 | 0.9 | 0.4 | 1.5 | 5.3 |
| Izaiah Brockington | 1 | 3.4 | 40.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 2.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 4.0 |
| Jeremiah Robinson earl | 27 | 9.7 | 50.0 | 41.4 | 80.0 | 0.6 | 1.6 | 2.2 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.7 | 3.5 |
| Kira Lewis, Jr. | 15 | 9.6 | 30.8 | 10.0 | 90.9 | 0.3 | 0.7 | 0.9 | 1.2 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 2.9 |
| Dereon Seabron | 6 | 9.2 | 30.8 | 50.0 | 83.3 | 0.2 | 1.0 | 1.2 | 0.8 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.7 | 2.3 |
| Cody Zeller | 39 | 7.7 | 41.7 | 33.3 | 61.1 | 1.2 | 1.6 | 2.7 | 0.9 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 1.1 | 1.9 |
| Ej Liddell | 8 | 2.9 | 16.7 | 0.0 | 100.0 | 0.0 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.5 |
| Jalen Crutcher | 1 | 2.7 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Kaiser Gates | 1 | 7.4 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
