Murphy ignited with a career-high 42 points, yet the Pelicans' losing streak continues. Poole falters as the team falls to the Lakers.
The New Orleans Pelicans got a gem of a performance from Trey Murphy, but lost their eighth straight game as the Los Angeles Lakers took it 111-103. The Pelicans now fall to 8-29 on the year.
This was a superstar performance from Murphy, who finished with a career-high 42 points, five rebounds and three assists. Without much help from anyone else for much of the game, he took on the offensive load when he was on the court.
This is the Murphy that people were waiting to see. He allowed others to create for him and looked to score and shoot whenever he got the ball.
He has made a concerted effort to shoot the ball more again. Between November 26 and December 26, he averaged just five threes a game. He still played well and averaged 21.1 points a night in that stretch, but it still felt like something was missing.
Over his last five games, his average is up to 12.4. He has shot at least 10 in the last four and took nine in the one before.
New Orleans head coach James Borrego mentioned before the game that the team has been leaning on Murphy and Jordan Poole to account for more three-point shooting. While Murphy held up his end of the bargain in this game, Poole did not.
After a four-game stretch where Poole averaged 19 points and shot 37.8% from three on 9.3 attempts per night, the guard has cooled off once again.
This was probably his weakest performances in a Pelicans uniform. In 18 minutes of play, he finished scoreless with one assist to go with three turnovers. He just made very little positive impact in this game.
It wasn't only Poole's fault that New Orleans lost this one, though. Jeremiah Fears was 4-of-13 from the field and Williamson was inconsistent while shooting 1-of-5 from the charity stripe.
The Pelicans' defense did do about as good a job as they could against Luka Doncic in this game, and he still finished with 30 points. He shot 3-of-10 from three and only shot 3-of-6 on free throws before garbage time with five turnovers. It was certainly their best performance against him this season.
Two of those makes came late and really put the game away near the end.
LeBron James also had a great night with 30 points, eight rebounds and eight assists.
New Orleans will play the first of a three-game road trip on Wednesday night against the Atlanta Hawks.