Monday night, the New Orleans Pelicans did something that no other NBA team had been able to do since December 26th, 2014 — beat the Atlanta Hawks.
The Pelicans, still without Jrue Holiday, who has missed the last 11 games with an ankle injury that’s expected to keep him sidelined for the next two weeks or so, have won six of their last seven games and will be looking to finish their current homestand 5-1 when they welcome the Thunder to New Orleans on Wednesday.
New Orleans took down the Clippers at the interestingly named Smoothie King Center on Friday, beat the aforementioned streaking Hawks and have a chance to take down one of the few teams challenging them for the Western Conference’s final postseason spot. Yeah, besting Oklahoma City would cap a pretty incredibly five-day stretch for a team that’s not even at full strength.
Monty Williams’ team has benefited greatly from the recent return of Anthony Davis, who missed the Clippers game with a groin injury and a few games earlier (toe) in the month, and by the improved play of Tyreke Evans, Eric Gordon and even backup center Alexis Ajinca.
Both Evans and Gordon have increased their field goal percentages every month this season and each posted very good numbers in January. Evans, a hybrid guard who has been used at small forward by Monty Williams before, averaged 17.9 points, 5.6 rebounds and 6.2 assists on 48 percent shooting per game in the month while Gordon averaged 15.3 with a stellar line of .453/.449/.862 shooting. To boot, Ajinca’s season PER is over 20.5 (20.61) and the Frenchman scored more than 16 points on three occasions in January. He hadn’t done that once in October, November or December.
The good news doesn’t stop there, though, for the Pelicans, which seems to possess incredible depth across the board.
Big man Omer Asik has been consistent the whole year, posting around seven points and 10 rebounds a game while serving as a defense-focused complement to Davis in the frontcourt. Sharpshooting power forward Ryan Anderson, whose overall month of January (just 38 percent from the field) was uninspiring, actually has picked up his play of late, scoring 18, 19, 24 and 15 points in respective wins over the Mavericks, 76ers, Clippers, and Hawks.
All of this doesn’t even include Dante Cunningham and Quincy Pondexter, who round out New Orleans’ rotation and actually weren’t on the Pelicans’ roster at the beginning of the season. Cunningham was signed in December after being waived by Minnesota and he has a been a nice bench piece for the Pelicans as he provides some scoring (48 percent shooter) and size (he’s 6’8″ and 230 pounds) on defense.
Pondexter, who played for New Orleans in the 2010-11 season when they were still the Hornets, was traded from the Grizzlies to the Pelicans in the Jeff Green deal. He has played almost 26 minutes per game since the trade in 11 games and has been a nice wing defender for a Pelicans team that is 8-3 since he joined it. Coincidence?
New Orleans has so many interesting and talented pieces and it appears that everything is finally coming together.
Davis has been playing out of his mind as usual, Evans and Gordon know their roles in the backcourt, Anderson is starting to make some threes and on and on. Also, considering that the Pelicans’ actual starting point guard hasn’t played in a few weeks, they’re not even at full strength. And when Holiday does come back, I don’t think there’s any Western Conference team that wants to play the Pelicans, regular season or postseason.
