The New Orleans Pelicans stumbled early, but evened out to beat the Sacramento Kings 133-123.
Well, it wasn't as easy of a win as many expected, but the New Orleans Pelicans did come out on top of the Sacramento Kings on Friday night with a 133-123 win.
The Kings fought out of the gate and even led after the first quarter, but the Pelicans took over after that and didn't really look back. New Orleans finally picked up their 20th victory of the season, take that Stephen A. Smith.
There was a little bit of injury scare going into this one for the Pelicans. Dejounte Murray was out because of this being the first half of a back-to-back and the team is saving him for the game against the Phoenix Suns on Friday night.
Less expected, though, was that Zion Williamson and Trey Murphy were listed as questionable. They both played, thankfully, but Borrego had a decision to make in the starting lineup with Murray out.
He decided to go with a new group. Williamson, Murphy, Saddiq Bey, Herb Jones and Yves Missi instead of DeAndre Jordan. For whatever reason, it did not really work at all. Missi had a down night with seven points and two rebounds. He did pick up four blocks and two steals, but was a team-worst -7.
Down the stretch, Borrego even went back on that group and swapped Missi out of Karlo Matkovic. It was one of Matkovic's best games of the year, picking up nine points, nine rebounds and three blocks. He was a team-high and career-best +22 on the night.
The bench unit as a whole did well. Derik Queen was 12, 9 and 5. Bryce McGowens was 14, 6 and 2. Jeremiah Fears was 14, 6 and 6. That kind of production with three of the starters hitting 20 points makes this team dangerous. It might not effect much this year, but it's what New Orleans hopes to see for the rest of the year and set next season up.
It wasn't perfect. The Pelicans would probably liked to score more than just 10 points off of 12 forced turnovers, they did trail by nine at one point and Sacramento outscored them in the paint. Still, a win is a win.
New Orleans will close out their lengthy west coast trip on Friday night against the Suns. They have gone 3-2 so far on this trip, so they will at least split the trip evenly. Phoenix has already beaten the Pelicans three times this year.