ORLANDO, Fla. — The New Orleans Pelicans are in a bad place right now.
They’re 3-8 over their last 11 games. They’ve slipped to fourth place in the Western Conference. In January, they rank 22nd in offensive rating and 24th in defensive rating. Everything that made this such a magical season for them has started to fade.
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But the last two outings really show how far they’ve fallen in recent weeks.
On Wednesday, the Miami Heat bullied them in the most lopsided defeat the Pelicans have suffered at Smoothie King Center all season.
They followed that up with a 123-110 loss to the Orlando Magic on Friday night that felt vastly different from what we’ve grown used to seeing from this resilient Pelicans squad.
It was only the Pelicans’ second loss this season against a team that currently sits at least four games under .500. The Magic shot a whopping 57 percent from the field in the second half, and they outscored New Orleans 35-19 in the fourth quarter.
Despite all the issues they’ve dealt with, the Pels have consistently handled business against lesser teams. Or, at the very least, they put up a commendable fight when the matchups are more even.
They failed to reach both of those benchmarks in their last two losses.
“We have to find our defensive identity. Right now, we’re not guarding the way we’re capable of,” Pelicans coach Willie Green said. “Those are things that we can control. We can make a decision as a team that we want to guard better. We just haven’t been doing it.”
The Pelicans have given up at least 120 points in five of their last 10 games, and opponents are shooting 49.2 percent against them in January, which ranks 26th in the NBA during that span.
In particular, Green’s defense is all about being disruptive in passing lanes and forcing opponents into mistakes, but even that has started to slip.
The Pelicans rank second in the NBA this season in steals, only behind the Toronto Raptors. But they’re just 13th in takeaways during this month.
They also started giving up shooting fouls at a higher rate as some of the defensive principles began to slip.
The way the Pelicans get back to playing like they did earlier in the season isn’t just hoping injured stars Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram fly in with their Superman capes. It also has to start with them embracing the defensive culture Green frequently emphasized in training camp.
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“People have to feel us. They have to feel our defensive pressure. That’s what we are built on: pressuring the ball, forcing turnovers and just being good (at) team defense,” Trey Murphy said. “We’ve definitely got to do better at that.”
That lack of defensive execution was apparent Friday. The Magic have quality young players. They deserve credit for the way they performed. But if the Pelicans are going to be a serious contender in the West, a team this young and inexperienced shouldn’t be able to repeatedly generate easy looks as often as it did late in the game.
It wasn’t just the inability to get stops. The confused looks after defensive mishaps were at an all-time high. There were more ill-advised fouls because of poor fundamentals. More plays in which weakside defenders got caught out of position. More slumped shoulders. More head shaking as players walked to the huddle.
After the game, Green tried to dismiss his team’s recent play as the typical lull that all NBA teams go through during the more difficult parts of the season. He may be right, but it’s hard not to feel like there’s more under the surface. In reality, it looks as if the weight of keeping this team afloat without its two best players is starting to wear on everyone.
Friday marked the ninth consecutive game the Pelicans have taken the floor without Williamson and Ingram and the 14th overall this season. Williamson has missed 17 games, while the Ingram number has ballooned to 32 games.
The Pelicans have been praised all season for their toughness and resiliency while claiming one of the best records in the West despite playing so often without their best players. That praise has been well-deserved.
But it requires tremendous effort and mental focus to keep pulling off that kind of high-wire act. It’s only a matter of time before fatigue kicks in.
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“We have a ‘next man up’ mentality, but it’s always nice to have two All-Stars in the rotation. That’s just the bottom line,” Murphy said. “You’re missing about 40 points on a very low night. You’re getting at least 40 from those two.”
There’s still no clear timetable for Ingram’s or Williamson’s return. Ingram seems more likely to suit up in the near future, but he’s been “close to a return” for over a month. Williamson coming back before the start of February seems highly unlikely, and him being 100 percent before the All-Star break is looking more far-fetched by the day.
As tough as it’s been for everyone else to keep the team above water until reinforcements show up, it’s not looking like that uphill climb will end anytime soon. Until then, they’ve got to reclaim the energy and physicality that was a staple of this team’s identity for so long.
It would also help if Ingram and Williamson finally got healthy and stayed on the court for more than just a few weeks.
But more than anything else, the primary battle will be keeping the locker room united and preventing any division that might pop up as losses come in.
While New Orleans does have some incredible high-end talent and arguably the deepest roster in the league, its biggest strength has always been the connectivity within the locker room. The way players push one another and compete daily while also remaining thick as thieves is special.
But it’s easy to maintain that love when the wins are rolling in and everyone’s saying how great you are. The real test is maintaining that chemistry when things are going wrong.
Fortunately, the Pelicans have experience in this area after their horrendous start last season. The way they made it through that 3-16 stretch to begin 2021-22 was a big reason they felt so confident as everything started rolling for them heading into the playoffs.
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Even without Williamson or Ingram, this group certainly doesn’t lack confidence. They won’t allow this recent rough patch to shake their belief in one another.
“Stay together. I think that’s the main thing,” Murphy said when asked how his team should respond to the recent losses. “We went through this a lot last year, where we lost a lot of games in a row. We never splintered as a group. We just stayed together. I think that’s what really helped us and propelled us into the postseason. We never went our separate ways and started blaming each other or pointing fingers. As long as we (don’t) do that, we’ll be fine.”
(Photo of Willie Green and Herbert Jones: Kim Klement / USA Today)
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