Pelicans First Half Takeaways: Zion Williamson’s Health, Herb Jones’s Defense, NBA Playoffs?

Pelicans First Half Takeaways: Zion Williamson’s Health, Herb Jones’s Defense, NBA Playoffs?

It’s a gutsy win um coming off a a long road trip a lot of elements play a factor but they’ve been playing well Washington’s been playing well they play hard they play together and you know we gave them some life and once you give a team life you know now their confidence

Is high and you know we had to grind to get this win but we’ll take it appel’s going to the all-star break 11 games over 500 after a 133 126 win over the Washington Wizards uh lead big blew the lead with a uh stumble late in the second quarter beginning of the

Third quarter with the PS got it done to head into the break 33 and 22 overall our buddy Jake Madison from lockon Pelicans good enough to join us for a couple of minutes he’s on Twitter Nola Jake how are you man I’m doing well thanks for having me

On that it’s always our pleasure uh start last night then we look first half as a whole um to what did you attribute um the I I guess the sluggish middle part of the game where the pels blew that big lead yeah I mean it’s a problem that’s

Kind of been plaguing them all season long and it comes down to like the starters just don’t play particularly well together you’ve that starting lineup of CJ McCullum Brandon Ingram herb Jones Zan William S yonas Valen chunis and on the season it hasn’t been a good lineup when you look at and

Compare it to other starting lineups around the league it’s one of the five worst I think and the Pelicans are getting a lot of these wins because of their bench guyss Jose Alvarado coming in brings energy to the team Naji Marshall has been playing well too you

Saw them go on a big run in the second quarter when they surrounded Zion with some Shooters and just some bench guys and it just looked like a different team so when you see them struggle in thirdd quarters it’s usually when the starters are out there on the court and so that’s

Kind of just been a problem for him and I thought it was a problem in last night’s game as well and I think it’s a little bit lucky that the bench is this good that they’re that deep and they managed to take kind of eek out the win

Was closer than it really should have been yeah Jake one of the things that your Zion said after the game um he talked about just being healthy right just being available at this point in the season and it hasn’t been that way since year two so this is sort of a a

Big picture question for you so you can take it wherever you want it’s sort of the the obligatory Zion question I guess but um what what is it me look 36 last night that tied a season High what does it mean for this team having a healthy Zion playing at this

Level yeah it means they’re above 500 right you know they’re 11 games above 500 going into the All-Star break here I think 26 27 more to go and this team is fifth sixth in the west as of today right they’re out of the play in tournament they’re solidly in the

Postseason we think they could be a good team we’ll find out I guess so just being healthy is going to get you wins right the way I kind of look at this team and this is something I’ve talked a lot about on my show is they’re good

Right I think we can safely say they’re good but they’re not even coming close to reaching their potential and that’s because they’re really talented and so that Talent is winning them games right now so when Zion goes out and puts up 36 and I think he had 10 straight points in

The second quarter they went on a 140 run to start that you know you saw this group show a lot of potential show a lot of talent here so when your best players are healthy you’re going to win games it’s really as simple as that this is a

Star driven league in the NBA you need guys out there on the court because they’re the ones who’s supposed to carry you you’ve seen Brandon Ingram do it at times you’ve seen FJ McCullen do it at times and now you’re seeing Zion kind of take his turn and he looked really good

Last night I thought yeah Jake the fill in the blank here the pel’s starters or the pel’s stars as you put it are good enough to fill in the blank how do you finish that sentence oh it’s still a little bit to be determined right now it’s they’re

Good enough to get into the playoffs I think beyond that I could not tell you for sure I think you know when you the way you kind of look at a rotation in the NBA is your starters are supposed to be your best fiveman group that’s supposed to punish other teams get you

Leads and then you put in your subs you put in your bench your rotation guys and you just hope they don’t lose the lead if they can kind of be a net zero if you look at plus minus in the box score and there is zero you’ll take that every

Time because it’s your starters who are supposed to do the work that’s not the Pelicans though and that concerns me in a playoff series that when you’re going up against only other good teams not the Washington Wizards who have nine wins I think you know not the Memphis Grizzlies

Who they couldn’t score over a 100 points against who were on an eight game losing streak going into that game I don’t know if going to be able to win a playoff series but you play enough bad teams in the regular season you can have those occasional nights where you beat a

Minnesota or you beat a Clippers team as well so the Pelicans as they are right now all things told the coaching the roster the rotation all of that is good enough to get into the postseason they’re a playoff team you uh Jake Madison’s Our Guest on Twitter at Nola

Jake I know you you posted on Twitter asking your audience the biggest questions they have for the Pelicans in the final stretch of the regular season let me go the other direction uh from you and ask you what are your three biggest takeaways or not necessarily three just your biggest takeaways from

The first half of the Season you know let’s start with a player we haven’t probably talked about enough and that’s herb Jones is really good this is a guy who needs to be making an all defensive team at some point soon in his career he’s just a

Lock down Defender but I think something that’s really surprised me about him this year is the three-point shooting you know the Pelicans need to take more threes that’s been a big point of emphasis for the past couple of years they need to shoot the three ball better

Herb Johns has not been known as a shooter but is is shooting above 40% which is an excellent number from Deep on the season he’s arguably been the most consistent player you could say for the New Orleans Pelicans this year and I’ve been so impressed to see his growth

And signing him to that very team-friendly deal this off season an early extension they didn’t need to pay him this past offseason they could have kicked that can down the road looks to be a very very smart move right now for the franchise I also think again you you

See that this is a talented team here with some big questions around him and you know when you’re asking for kind of takeaways from the first part of the year is they’re good you know I I don’t want people to lose sight of that when it comes to this team you know even

After you struggle to get wins over Portland over Memphis both of those teams basically being g-league squads at this point in time over the lowly Washington Wizards there’s still Talent here and it’s sometimes fun to kind of just enjoy the ride they’re on Pace for 48 49 wins right now that’s only

Happened at three time in franchise history so we’re on Pace for a top four season in New Orleans basketball history I think is something to really keep in mind here that you know this doesn’t always happen to this team and to this franchise so we’ve got to enjoy it a

Little bit but honestly looking at this season I still have more questions than I have you know real concrete takeaways from that and I hope we’ll get some clarity on that over the final 25 games or so what would you like to see you know my big question is is this

Your core going forward right going into the trade deadline there was a lot of talk about moving on from yonas valent Tunis and I think that’s the move they want to make to see if they can get this starting group working it’s easier to move on from Jonas valent chunis than it

Is say from a Zion Williamson a Brandon Ingram a CJ McCollum so that’s kind of the first approach you take right it’s like when you look at a team like the Milwaukee Bucks they fired their head coach early on in the season because it’s easier to do that and hope you get

Some positive results than it is to completely turn over your roster even if that guy wasn’t actually a bad coach so the pelant I think are going to kind of take that first step of trying to address the center position and seeing if that maybe fixes that starting lineup

I’m a little bit doubtful that it will but you have more options to do that this offseason you know if you do that and it doesn’t work or if you maybe make a change and put larion n Jr in the starting lineup or you go more small

Ball with Zion Williamson at the five which had some limitations too and that doesn’t work you know do you need to then have discussions about the Zion wings Brandon Ingram pairing or if they go into the postseason and those two light it up and the center position

Doesn’t matter much maybe this is the core that you keep and so those are some of the big things that I’m really looking for towards the end of this season you know again they’re a good team they’re a top 10 defense they’re just on the outside of that in terms of

Their offensive rating but the offense definitely has been holding them back so can they find some sort of cohesiveness between Zion Brandon Ingram TJ and the rest of the guys there that’s what I’d really like to see as they kind approach the end of the year 27 games to go uh

The Pelicans remaining strength of schedule is 11th in the NBA so it’s not exactly like it’s a um it’s a light lift the rest of the way what do you think are we’re talking about come mid April Jake is is this a playin team or do you

Think this is a team that that will finish in the top six you know I I think they they’re still going to finish in the top six the West is tough but we’ve seen them also get some very good quality wins right beating the Clippers on the road was a

Big one they’ve gone up to Minnesota beaten them they’ve played the Denver Nuggets really well for the most part I think this is a good team here so I think they’re going to solidly be in the postseason I’m going to be curious to see if they end up with close you know

If they get to 49 wins and they’re still the seventh seed so in the play in tournament I don’t even know if that’s necessarily a bad thing as long as they get out of fed playing tournament which you know they didn’t last year and we expected them to so that’s on the table

As well so you know I think we’re going to have a lot more I think you’re gonna get a lot more data points on this team with how they end the season with how potentially the playing tournament looks or how just an actual series looks on

The direction they need to go and at least we’ll finally have kind of like seen this group play right we’ve never seen Zion in the playoffs we don’t really know what to expect if they find a way to make all of that work you know

I think at the end of it no matter what even if they don’t you at least know what you need to do going forward and that’s going to mean this season was a success because then you can really start to prep and play for next year use some of those additional draft picks

They have you know from the bucks from the Lakers and go and make those moves kind of go all in and try and make yourself into a true title Contender H it’s going to be interesting to watch we we say the second half I mean there’s only 27 games remaining

It’s obviously as it pertains to the all-star break but the pells have a lot to play for with 27 to go and they get back from the break of course we’ll be following locked on Pelicans however get your podcast or go subscribe up to the locked on Pelicans YouTube Channel Jake

Does an awesome job he’s on Twitter at Nola Jake thanks man we always appreciate it course thanks for having me on hey thanks so much for watching please leave your comments I love to interact and be sure to hit the red subscribe button Below [Applause] you with you after

Jake Madison of Locked On Pelicans Podcast joins AFR to recap the Pelicans win over the Washington Wizards and break down the first half of the season as a whole. Will the Pelicans make a playoff push in the second half or is this team more of a Play In Tournament team?