New Orleans Pelicans Suffer Ugliest Loss Yet To Denver Nuggets On Wednesday Night

Despite winning the middle of the game, a slow start and another poor close led to the New Orleans Pelicans dropping Wednesday night's game against the Denver Nuggets by  a score of 104-91. 

The Pelicans will drop to 0-4 after suffering a whole new frustration in this game. It's not that it was never close; they had fought back in the second half, but it was just a very sloppy game. It's hard to start with a 37-18 hole after the first quarter against guys like Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray and then go on to win the game. 

Zion Williamson had a fantastic game, at least. He played strong defense and took over on offense at times. He finished with 25 points on 10-of-14 from the field with five rebounds, two assists and three steals. There isn't much more they could have asked him to do. The problem is that he got zero help from his teammates.

Jeremiah Fears and Derik Queen tied for the second-most points on the team with 11. This was another game where Trey Murphy disappeared for stretches and only had seven shot attempts. Even Saddiq Bey had an uncharacteristically poor night, finishing with a -22 overall.

Fears had another rough start to the night, but he actually put together some solid second-half minutes after he was allowed to run the second unit as the only point guard on the floor. The stretches with both him and Dejounte Murray on the court together continue to look very rough, with almost no synergy between the two.

At some point, the Pelicans will have to make a decision on how they are going to play the two separately. They want to keep Jeremiah Fears in the spotlight, but are paying Murray a ton of money and don't want to tank his trade value should this season going down.

Murray was another in a long line of New Orleans players who had a bad night on Wednesday. His decision-making and shot selection late continue to be a detriment right now. He had some nice rebounds and led the team in assists (with five), but 10 points on 4-of-11 from the field was not enough.

One player who didn't have a bad night was Herb Jones. His defense help keep the Pelicans in the game. Unsurprisingly, the game was no longer competitive when he left the court. This was another game where he had just 19 minutes played and didn't close out the night despite playing so well in the second half.

New Orleans will have to hope they are able to bounce back quickly on Thursday night as the also 0-4 Sacramento Kings come to town. Someone is going to get their first win. If it isn't the Pelicans, then this season has even bigger problems than people realize right now.