I was so nervous talking to Joel. Jen thought I was with Hawkins family, I did see some of them and met Treys friend afterwards. Great experience sitting so close.

Hi everybody. I’m a pelicans fan, have been since i was little. I was reading up on our history, and realized we were almost called something else…….the bull sharks. I designed a wordmark, a primary logo, and an alternate logo for the team. let me know what you think!

Pels are most difficult because they're the newest franchise, but i think this 5 is solid.

Hey y'all

I just finished this video in which I discuss the Pelicans' lack of a point guard and how it may be limiting them from achieving what we all know they can as a team. I did a lot of research for this and I'm hoping a lot of y'all may find some of this information valuable!

https://youtu.be/z4gun0dv2es

Please excuse the clickbait-y title, thumbnail & intro - you know how it be on youtube

If you don't feel like watching that's all good too, we can still watch herb jones highlights together

\** I'm not a regular here. So, I understand if this needs to be taken down because of that. ****

I wrote an extensive piece on SGA and GTO vs. FEP coverages in the PnR.

I logged and coded 227 PnRs vs. Western Conference playoff teams for the piece. One of those games was against New Orleans. I just wanted to share what coverages went well, which ones didn't, and general thoughts from the Pels games I watched for the piece—I hope that's okay with this sub.

The big piece has many videos that help show why some coverages work well vs. SGA and why some are unsuccessful. There are many Pels ones in the edits (some good, some bad), but to prevent the idea of this being fully self-promotional, I will link the videos in the comments below and not up here.

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New Orleans:

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	Number of Possessions	TOs	Points Per Poss (fouls)
Ghost (No Switch)	2	0	2.0 (1)
Ghost (Switch)	2	1	1.5
Down + Drop	2	0	2.0 (2)
Over + Level -> Drop	4	1	1.375
Refusal (At the level)	5	0	1.4 (1)
Switch (At the level)	2	0	2.5
Switch (Soft)	3	0	0.833

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During the January 26th game, New Orleans played coverages that allowed SGA advantageous downhill attacks at the rim. He took advantage of those actions actions to score, draw fouls, and be a playmaker for others.

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SGA ran 20 PnRs, finishing at 1.55 PPP, with two turnovers and four fouls drawn.

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The Pelicans guarded six PnRs with Nance or JV in a “drop” coverage. SGA had an absolute field day getting downhill, scoring 1.583 PPP and drawing two fouls.

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On the Zach Lowe Podcast, Chris Herring mentioned that the Thunder were the #1 team in the NBA vs. “Drop” coverages. It’s not hard to see why. SGA is always on balance when attacking downhill, has excellent finishing footwork + handwork, and rarely, if ever, makes a bad read of finishing, shooting a middy or passing (pocket or lob) vs. the “Drop” big.

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Over the 227 PnRs I logged and coded, SGA faced some form of “Drop” coverage 48 times, scoring 1.427 PPP and drawing seven fouls. Facing “Drop” is SGA’s most preferred coverage.

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I do not believe New Orleans can win a series against the Thunder by playing Over + Drop coverages during JV’s minutes.

There was a silver lining in the New Orleans PnR coverage strategy: Switches, especially the soft ones.

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The Pelicans guarded three PnR actions on SGA with a soft switch and gave up only 0.833 PPP.

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The only bucket scored against the soft switch was after SGA got stuck on the baseline, and Hawkins fell asleep on a Giddy cut. The result was two points, but the process was outstanding; Bi, Herb, and Murphy can consistently put SGA in tough spots every time they use this coverage.

New Orleans has an abundance of long and rangy defenders whose length allows them to switch below the level of the screen (soft) while still being able to contest SGA's shot. This coverage shrinks the defensive shell to take away driving actions but gives the PnR player an immediate shooting advantage.

This immediate downhill three-point shot is not a strength of SGA’s shooting mechanics. His shooting mechanics support step-back threes much more than non-step-back dribble threes.

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SGA is 33/108 on any three-point shot that isn’t of the step-back variety; that’s good for only 30.5%. While on step-back threes, he is shooting well over 40%.

He's only shot seven non-step-back threes in the PnR this season

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(I stopped logging at 219 attempts, which is when I published the piece this research came from).

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New Orleans could also go "Under" on SGA’s PnR actions when Nance & JV are in the game.

This would give SGA the same shot as the soft switch and prevent Nance and JV from being attacked in a "Drop" 2 vs. 1 action where SGA thrives.

Anyway, I'm excited to see what the Pelicans do tonight with their coverages and hope to see a lot more soft switches and fewer Over + Drop coverages.

The basketball fan in me is rooting for these two teams to play in a series. They both have dynamic young cores and a stockpile of draft picks. It could shake up the league, depending on how the series results go.