The Milwaukee Bucks scorched the New Orlean Pelicans' porous defense in their 139-118 win on Friday night.
As the New Orleans Pelicans prepared to face the Milwaukee Bucks without Trey Murphy, most were worried about the offense. It ended up being the defense that did them in as the Bucks took a 139-118 victory on Friday night.
The Pelicans' defense was, for lack of a better word, horrid in this game. There wasn't a single quarter in which Milwaukee scored fewer than 30 points. The Bucks shot 60/42/78 splits as a team.
Ryan Rollins, Cam Thomas, Kevin Porter Jr. and Bobby Portis all scored at will. It was an ugly performance all around.
The lack of shooting that Murphy would have added certainly didn't help, but it wasn't the only reason that New Orleans lost this game.
It actually didn't matter all that much in the first half. The Pelicans scored 56 of their 65 points from the paint. It tied the most that any team has scored in the paint since the 1996/97 season, per Andrew Lopez.
They followed that up with just 28 points in the paint in the second half, which is when Milwaukee pulled away further.
Ever since James Borrego has taken over, New Orleans has been dominant in the paint at times. It helps to have Zion Williamson, who scored 32 points in this game.
That could be a legitimate part of their identity, but they still have to have some sort of threat from the outside. The Bucks made 11 more threes on just 11 more shots than the Pelicans, which is a bad sign for both ends of the court.
In an effort to fill in some of the shooting gap, Borrego turned to Jordan Poole (and five minutes of Jordan Hawkins) for the first time since the benching around the trade deadline.
This certainly wasn't a performance that will have the coach itching to give him more minutes when Murphy returns.
Poole made his first shot, a three-pointer from the logo, but went on to not score again despite playing 25 minutes. He had four rebounds and three assists, but finished 1-of-6 from the field.
The rookies both had nice nights on offense. Derik Queen had 18 points, eight rebounds, four assists, three steals and two blocks. Jeremiah Fears had 16 points, four rebounds, five assists and two steals.
New Orleans will play again at home on Saturday night as the Philadelphia 76ers come to town for a 6 pm CT tipoff.