The New Orleans Pelicans held on after a fourth-quarter scare for a 104-95 road win over the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday night.
New Orleans Pelicans fans had to feel a pit in their stomach as they watched a 20-point lead over the San Antonio Spurs disappear in the fourth quarter, but the Pelicans locked back in down the stretch to pull off a 104-95 win on Sunday night.
The Pelicans were able to rely on clutch play from their stars, Trey Murphy and Zion Williamson, as well as role players like Saddiq Bey, Herb Jones and Yves Missi.
This is the New Orleans team that many thought they would be getting coming into the year. Instead, this win improves them to just 12-36, though it is their second in a row. This avoids a season sweep from the Spurs.
Jones completely changes the outlook of this team. The Pelicans switched to a big lineup when he returned from injury and that has been somewhat of a revelation.
Getting Jones, Bey, Williamson and Murphy on the court together is a winning combination. This is what analysts meant before the season, when it felt like they should be able to win games.
Jones not only makes the defense better at his slot, but he also makes his teammates around him better as well. New Orleans allowed just 40 points in the middle two quarters.
Bey led the team in scoring with 24 points along with 10 rebounds, four assists and another zero turnover game.
Missi came off the bench to replace a struggling Derik Queen for most of this game and put up 10 points and 14 boards, as well as clutch defense against Victor Wembanyama. He has had a nice stretch of basketball.
When they get performances like this from their players, this is clearly a team that can compete. It's simply been too inconsistent, mostly in terms of health.
It seems likely that James Borrego has found something he likes with this big lineup and it will continue over the next few games.
Another hard-to-ignore development from this game was the fact that Jordan Poole was a healthy scratch. Conspicuous timing with the Scoop B report from earlier on Sunday that the Pelicans had offered Poole and Dejounte Murray to the Memphis Grizzlies for Ja Morant and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
Jose Alvarado returned, which gave them another point guard to go to, and Poole got benched. It could just be that Poole hasn't played well, or that they don't want him to get hurt before they can trade him. Both stem from the same issue, though.
New Orleans will be met with a major test when they return to the court on Tuesday with a road match against the Oklahoma City Thunder at 7:00 pm CT.