The New Orleans wrapped up their first preseason under new head coach Jamahl Mosley on Friday night, going 3-1 over a promising stretch of games.

It’s the preseason of course, so no reason to overreact, but there were a lot of positives trends beginning to emerge. This team wasn’t perfect, but after the disappointment of the last two years, they didn’t need to be. They just had to show promise, and they did.

Here are some takeaways from the first couple of games:

The Pelicans won all three games that finished within a single-digit difference. Last year, clutch moments were horrible for them. The late stretches were with bench players on both sides, but the coaching is what matters here.

When teams fall apart late, it usually falls on a failure of leadership. Some players aren’t built for the moment, but that’s not what it really felt like. They would seem lost and without a clear idea of what to do as games got late. Not that they had much consistency in non-clutch moments either, to be fair.

It was a step forward here, which is a great sign. The Orlando Magic were stellar in the clutch last year, so this is something Mosley is clearly comfortable with.

Fears was undoubtedly the MVP of the preseason. He led the team with 13.3 points per game, which was 3.3 more than the next highest (Saddiq Bey and Zion Williamson). He also added 2.5 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.5 steals on 50/50/76.9 shooting splits.

The 20-year-old looks ready to attack his second year in the NBA head-on. The hope is to see him take a sophomore leap rather than a slump.

Fears looks more confident in pretty much every phase of the game, looks stronger and has an improved jump shot.

It’s unclear what the plan is for him right now, given that he was expected to start the year on the bench, but he looks great. If Mosley rolled him out as a starter next Wednesday, no one would complain.

The defense wasn’t perfect. At times, it looked vulnerable. Again, that’s to be expected early on. The good news, though, is that they improved consistently as well. They are picking up on more of the schemes that this staff is implementing.

The players are still learning what to do, but they are communicating far more and everyone’s buy-in has been noticeable. They know that this coaching staff will not be playing those that don’t try on defense, because this is a deep team (in terms of players the team is very comfortable playing at least) that has a next-man-up who will try at a minimum.

While it wasn’t the stiffest competition, it was preseason for everyone. New Orleans finished fourth in defensive rating, second in steals and 10th in blocks. Rebounding has been the biggest red flag, as they rank in the bottom-half, which has led to second-chance points.