Stick with the starters! The New Orleans Pelicans need to stop experimenting in 2nd half

Stick with the starters! The New Orleans Pelicans need to stop experimenting in 2nd half

The Pelicans lost to the Boston Celtics showed you that Willie Green needs to stick with the starting lineup more and that means yonas valent chunis but don’t think that fixes the center position for the pals I’ll explain in today’s episode of Locked on Pelicans let’s Go you are locked on Pelicans your daily New Orleans Pelicans podcast part of the locked on podcast cast network your team every day welcome to another edition of locked on Pelicans the daily podcast covering your favorite team the New Orleans Pelicans in NBA part of the locked on

Podcast Network your team every day available wherever you get your podcast and available on YouTube I’m your host Pelicans Insider credential member of the media Jake Madison at no Jake on Twitter here with yall on this Monday and yeah we are going to talk about the Pelicans losing 1049 92 to the Boston

Celtics I got some thoughts yeah there probably should have been more yonas Val chunis in this game but I actually don’t think it would have made that big of a difference but regardless the Larry to start the third second half start the third quarter second half has got to end

Because it’s not working we’re going to break all of that down look at the center position overall and why it’s imperative they figured this out as well as Dyson Daniels return how dod he do we’ll break it all down in today’s episode of Locked on pelicans and of

Course thank you for making locked on Pelicans your first listen today and every day we are the number one Pelicans podcast covering everything you want to know about this team whether it’s the run towards the playoffs changes they need to make we’ll get into the draft free agency all of that subscribe

Wherever you get your podcast and join almost 10,000 Pelicans fans on YouTube as well and becomeing every day or that means you listen Monday through Friday and if you are let me know in the comments down below okay this game against the Boston Celtics good first quarter rough rest of

The way particularly in the third quarter where the Pelicans scored just 11 points why did things go so poorly so part of this I think people want to look at the center position and I’ll see it in the comments here like they should have played Jonas Valen chunis more yes

Jonas Valen chunis wasn’t going to be an answer look the the Boston Celtics won their 58th game in this one they are by far by far the best team in the league and it’s not particularly close when it comes to wins and losses right they have seven more wins than the next closest

Team to them they’re good losing to them is something that’s going to just happen right we know the center position is an issue for New Orleans it reared its ugly head here they’re just not as good as the Boston Celtics are in probably any capacity that’s okay Boston is Boston

This is New Orleans you can’t necessarily try and compare the two they’re having different seasons I think that was a big part of it that’s why I don’t know if there’s really time to panic or anything like that when it comes to this this is just a better team

Winning and sometimes it’s as simple as that however starting Larry Junior in the second half coming out of the break it’s time to stop this and this is not necessarily an endorsement of Jonas V chunis and more on him in a minute but it hasn’t worked it hasn’t worked all

Season as they have tried to do this and it certainly didn’t work in this quarter as they the they the Pelicans scored just 11 points in that third quarter with Larry Nance Jr getting that kind of initial run here and I have the game

Flow in front of me let me pull it up it wasn’t good right he was – 8 in 6 minutes of action to start the second quarter or the the second half the third quarter that’s where they lost the game right it was close going in Boston got

Momentum going into halftime no one decided to guard Derek white that was disappointing they kind of had it botched two for one three for two opportunity really at the end of the half as well so none of that none of that just went well for New Orleans they

Lost the lead they lost the momentum and they came out and the adjustment they tried to make of starting Larry n Jr didn’t work if it was one game and they were trying it that’d be a one thing it’s not we’ve seen them do this regularly and it has not worked I don’t

Think starting Lance Jr in the third quarter the second half has really worked at all and you saw just evidence in full display here porzingis has a huge height advantage over him so does Al Horford right and while Larry is shorter than Valen chunis Val chunis was

Going to struggle too and again more on that here right here’s the thing even if I don’t think you V Tunis is the answer and I do think the center position is just a problem they don’t have an answer to and sometimes problems like that exist during a basketball season there’s

Not a whole lot you can do it right the starters though in their first stint won their minutes that first run of the starters out there ended when they subbed out Jonas valent chunis and the team was up by eight points they had a 70 run and a 90 run during that stretch

And then you never saw that lineup out there again this is weird to me that lineup won their minutes that’s the end of the day what you’re trying to do why would you not see that lineup again why not see it once again this is less about

Yonas chunis oh more about a lineup That was working right Jonas didn’t have a good game in this one I don’t think he was one of five he wasn’t the answer to trying to get this win over the Boston Celtics it was other things that they needed it wasn’t yonas necessarily here but

Your starting lineup was working it was working why would you go away for that for a lineup with Larry n Jr that doesn’t work and hasn’t worked and here’s the numbers with it right with Jonas malunis CJ McCullum Trey Murphy herb Jones Zion Williams and Jonas malunis 157 possessions this season has

A net rating of 14.6 the offense is bad but the defense is very very good and the offense has room to probably improve there okay you run that same lineup with Larry n jior in at Center instead of yonas valun it’s 142 possessions so 15 possession difference they’re somewhat similar it’s

Got a net rating of minus 7.5 so that’s a difference of like 22 in terms of net rating the defense is bad and the offense is bad with that lineup with Larry an Jr they’ve talked about how they do that to help them defensively it is a worse defensive lineup based off of

The numbers there’s no need to go to that anymore that starting lineup has been playing well enough you need to probably run them in the second half and go with that or at least run them again right I don’t think gonis funis is the answer but if you have a lineup that

Worked you absolutely need to run that lineup at least one other freaking time in the game right that seems like it would be a good idea you didn’t see that happen that to me is the worst part of this not should yonas have played or not should they have played through it’s

Nothing to do with that it’s you had a lineup that worked and you didn’t go back to it for a minute later in the game I don’t understand that to me that is truly like a very baffling thing to see that is the biggest problem here

They need to stop the Larry n Jr starting the second half of games they need to go with lineups that are working and see if you can win some more of those minutes and change the the outcome of a game but that doesn’t mean that yonas anunas is the answer or that he

Fixes the center position because I do think this is a problem for New Orleans and they don’t have an answer to it I want to look at that Jonas Val chunis the offseason a little bit and Zion at the five they went with that a lot the

Entirety of the fourth quarter what did we learn from that that’s coming up here next in today’s episode of Locked on Pelicans right now though I’m excited excited to tell you about prize picks prize picks is a number is America’s number one fantasy sports app with more

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Less prize pick it’s that easy and thank you for making lock on Pelicans your first listen today and every day we are here Monday through Friday covering everything you want to know about the team part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day the number one Pelicans podcast

Subscribe wherever you get your podcast and join almost 10,000 Pelicans fans on YouTube if you’re watching on YouTube let me know in the comments down below do you think Jonas nunis is the answer is it more about the lineup is it play through him let me know what you think I

Don’t think it’s that but they should have played him more less Larry right now I think is a good thing because look the them being undersiz is is not the answer either we’ve definitely seen enough now that what they’re doing isn’t working so by the way are you watching

Fox Sports or ESPN on your TV all day do you have to turn down the volume with all that shouting make the switch to lock on sports today a free 24/7 sports streaming Channel program for you every day to bring you the biggest stories without all the screaming lock on sports

Today brings you can’t miss analysis opinions and news streaming 24/7 on YouTube with a free Fire TV channels app part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day so the Pelicans have a center problem they have a center problem and look I don’t think there’s

An answer to the problem this season which is why I’m not overly worried about it right you you just got to make do and I think it’s when you’re looking at the postseason that when you see this hey you’re looking for matchups ideally a team like the Clippers maybe even the

Minnesota Timberwolves I think that basically render your Center position not a concern but against other teams it’s going to be right Jonas is I don’t think he’s like a miserable Defender I don’t think he’s an average or good Defender he holds his own at times but they’re limited with what they want to

Try and do right the switching is what they want to run he doesn’t fit that he holds his own but you have to kind of change coverages and the defense is better at times without him we’ve seen that for sure but he’s not as bad as

People want to make him out to be but this isn’t a long-term solution right there isn’t exactly spacing with Jonas Valen chunis there isn’t particularly great spacing with Larry n Jr either because Joe Missoula I can tell you the Boston Celtics head coach was thrilled thrilled with Larry Nance Jr taking

Those shots that he took in this game they want him shooting so you kind of played into their hands and were in a sense out coached in that way right like that wasn’t the way that you were going to win this game Larry finished with five points on two of five shooting one

Of three from Deep three rebounds two assists it’s not a particularly impactful game Jonas Val Tunis in this one two points five rebounds 0 for one from three one of five from the field two assists neither was impactful because the center position is a problem for the Pelicans they need to figure

That out this off seon but they don’t have an answer to it right now some games you’ll be okay some games you won’t it’s really that simple the defense from Chris Taps porzingis from the Boston Celtics who are great in this game was a problem porzingis had four

Blocks in this one right he’s he kind of blocked everybody it seemed like so you weren’t going to run into a very good situation here he blocked one from Hawkins Nance Zion and Murphy so you weren’t going to have really what you wanted at all occur in this game so

You’ve got to figure out the center position in another way and that’s going to be in the off season right now though what the Pelicans tried to do was run Zion Williamson well hold on more more on the on the yonas valent chunes thing so the the starters won their minutes in that

First period they were a positive eight the next time yonas funa stepped into the game he had a three minute stint from the start of the second quarter going into 8 minutes and 49 seconds remaining in the second quarter he was a minus 7 during that time it wasn’t like

He was impactful in the other times that he was out there on the court right those minutes right there that I’m talking about were against C snaps porzingis who just gave him a ton a ton of trouble you know his next stint late in the third quarter after they took out

Larry after Larry went basically that lineup went 0 uh was minus 8 he was a minus5 so in the other stint that he played he was a minus what is that a minus where did the numbers go he’s – 7 in that 3 minute stint and then a minus

5 so he’s A- 12 otherwise it wasn’t like he was doing much better when he was out there some of that’s lineup based and we’ll get more into Dyson Daniels and that stuff in the next segment here some of that’s lineup based and that’s why I said play the starters more not play

Yonas valunas more there’s a big difference between the two things so they tried Zion at the five to see if maybe that would do something I don’t know what to make of all of this right now to be perfectly honest with you you know Zion at the five I don’t

Know if that’s something that you can truly do long term I actually took notes during this game and one of my notes literally on my phone here let me pull it up um where is that was because you’re getting increased rebounding from guys like Trey Murphy thei third from

Zion Williamson you can try other lineups like Zion at the five so in the fourth quarter they didn’t play Larry n Jr or Jonas valent Tunis the Pelicans won that quarter 24 to 21 you know Zion feasted with this lineup 10 points on three of four shooting big problem for

Him and the team in the game in this one was missing at the free throw line he was four of seven but he also had three rebounds and assists and didn’t have a turnover he was really good during this stretch when he was out there on the

Court playing the five does that mean that that’s a long-term answer I’m really not sure like I’m really not sure but with him playing the five they had a 13 to3 run and a 7 to2 run that’s pretty useful I think in there the problem is

Boston got off hot to start that quarter two in the fourth and kind of buried New Orleans but because Boston was also up by so much going into the fourth quarter should we have really should we read too much into the fact that that lineup kind

Of worked or is it just one of those things of it’s just a lot of noise because Boston wasn’t trying nearly as hard at that point in time and they were still trying that’s a team that is well coached and isn’t going to just want to give up and not

Try but it all goes to say they have a center position and in the playoffs might be decided by do they just get a favorable matchup where the center position isn’t actually a problem for the Pelicans or is it something like where you run into Denver and look no

One has an answer for Denver and yic here right but I also think that OKC is going to be troubled because of hom grin out there on the perimeter I don’t think JV was the answer to that either right otherwise you would see him in these other minutes that he’s playing be more

Effective he’s not so they need to address this this offseason it’s why they were really looking at trying to get someone else during the NBA’s trade deadline and at this point they should have just traded for Daniel Gafford just I don’t think he’s actually better but I

As much as I think you can at times use JV better than you are if you’re not going to use him at all just get a guy that would have played right the move would have been trade for Gafford at this point that’s hindsight we know that

Now but this has been an issue all season it’s why again they looked to kind of adjust from that during the trade deadline couldn’t find anything and I’m sure we’ll see some of these talks Revisited during this off season maybe they can go and get a Miles Turner

Maybe it is a guy like Jared Allen maybe it’s just draft somebody that you think fits a little bit better we’ve seen rookie centers you know in Dallas with uh Lively the second make an impact Jaylen Duran over in Detroit has made an impact you’ve seen other guys as well

Mark Williams with the Charlotte Hornets has played well also so there’s a number of guys that have been impact rookies that I think really and help you and play well for you and if you can go and get one of those guys well that’s definitely worth doing if he fits the

Scheme and everything that they want to run so that’s something that we were going to be we will be covering tremendously this offseason where the pelons also potentially have two first round picks depending on what they want to do with the Lakers pick that they have the rights potentially to they can

Either use that this year or next year depending so Zion at the center looked good there was space you could run you could play fast right CJ was making some shots herb was at least attempting threes you saw some Matt Ryan minutes as they tried to just do something I would

Have preferred those minutes for Trey they put him back in the rebounding wasn’t atrocious during that run either that’s an important thing maybe it’s something that you experiment with a little bit more though I don’t think it’s really the time to experiment with things anymore Boston certainly can because well yeah they’ve

Locked up the one seed but this is something that New Orleans needs to figure out and they need need to just try to kind of find the best Band-Aid for it right now and it’s probably just playing JV with the starters to start the second half and not playing Larry n

Jr in that and using him a little bit less and more Off the Bench with that sort of thing we’ll see though you know they get a chance to go back out compete against the Phoenix Suns in this game we’ll see what ends up happening here

Nerkish is not a great Center th gives them you know maybe a bit of an advantage here so we’ll see how they’re going to match up with this team but the standings are getting tight and we’ll look at that and I’ll give you the strength the schedules we can project

Some wins things like that um for the future of this team because you know I don’t think they’re going to end up in the play in but they’re losing their grip a little bit potentially on the fifth seed as well and that’s not an ideal situation so Dyson Daniels

Returned and he should not be playing he shouldn’t be playing I’ll tell you why that’s coming up here next in today’s episode of Locked on Pelicans right now though I’m excited to tell you about Fire TV Fire TV is your destination for sports from live games to Highlights to in-depth analysis Fire

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Know about this Pelicans team whether it’s the in-game adjustments that aren’t working for head coach Willie Green to some changes we think we want to see made to what the off season is going to look at and Center is certainly going to be a very big important part of that and

Kind of shape the entirety of the off season we’ll look into the draft free agency we’re going to cover it all here it’s a lot of fun please subscribe wherever you get your podcast we are part of the lock on podcast Network your team every day in the number one

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With me I’ll give them to you I appreciate everyone showing me love and supporting the podcast so let’s move on from this for the most part from this Boston game right you know part of this I do think is just Boston’s good they’re better than the Pelicans right you lost

To a better team I don’t think there was an answer to what Boston was doing I would have liked if they just didn’t play into Boston’s hand nearly as much they tried to do some things that I thought were kind of good and aggressive and I dug that right Zion at the four

Was something we or sorry Zion at the five something we really haven’t seen what you were doing before with JV and an wasn’t working so go with that I like that attitude with that sort of thing even though it kind of went really really poorly for them to end the first

Half they ran a pretty slick play to try and run a two for one opportunity and that’s where you try to get two possessions to your opponent one possession at the end of a quarter so if there’s 40 seconds or so you run a quick possession take a quick quick shot you

Make it you miss it whatever they get a possession but there’s more than 24 seconds left on the shot clock so you will get the final shot of that quarter you get two possessions to their one it’s a really useful thing when you’re trying to maximize possessions in the

NBA they tried to do that with like 34 seconds left which is like not the time that you do that when you’ve got to go full court to generate a shot but they ran a play where the ball was inbounded to like herb Jones and then he just

Screams up the court with a couple of screens he doesn’t lay the ball in well Boston gets it they run down the court make a shot and then the Pelicans didn’t do well on the next offensive end and that gave Derek white time to kind of launch that three which no one contested

So they didn’t do a good job of all of it but I like that they were at least doing something to be aggressive to try and go and win the game or end the quarter in their advantage again botched it didn’t work it’s okay sometimes doing the right thing is an important thing

One of the right things is making sure you’re running the correct rotation here and I don’t know if this team truly did that in this game Dyson Daniels returned from injury he has no injury designation for tonight’s game against the Phoenix Suns which is great to see him come back

From the miniscus injury certainly and in about 11 minutes of action you know he was out there on the court and it was great to see he’s a good Defender you could see it he was aggressive he was trying to move the ball he was trying to

Rebound the ball but I don’t think you can play him right now or play him in a playoff rotation the offense just isn’t there and that’s a lot of the Pelicans problem the defense is good right they have Boston 104 points 102 points whatever the number was like that’s a

That’s a good number there however you’ve got to score you’ve got to score and that’s not something that the Pelicans have done a good job of at times Dyson Daniels was absolutely Tri shot he was scared to shoot there’s a time in the corner where he’s wide open

He’s got to take it there was a time that he was down low near the basket just just put the ball up man you’re right there and he didn’t do that it’s it’s okay it’s okay he’s just returning from injury getting him some runs important getting him kind of back into

The flow of things is important too but but you’re trying to win the game you need offense right you know I mentioned that second stint for JV where he’s a minus 7 and 3 minutes of action the Pelicans went CJ McCullum Jonas Val chunis Jordan Hawkins Nai Marshall Dyson

Daniels they’re trying to kind of recreate that CJ JV and Shooters with one Defender lineup that they had working earlier on in the year and it just didn’t work here right partially because Jonas munis was outmatched here I think when they had both Al Horford and Chris ABS porzingis on the court

During that time that’s a lot of length that bothers JV like that you know CJ wasn’t shooting enough during that stretch Dyson Daniels is your defender in there but you need more of an offensive threat Nai Nai has been good and is shooting the ball well but that

Lineup didn’t work probably did Jonas V Tunis no favors if you put Dyson out there he’s got to be willing to shoot and if he’s scared to do that that’s not going to lead to like really good success and that was disappointing to see from him during all of this you know

He had some run in late in the third where your lineup was who was it here was Trey Murphy CJ McCullum Naji Marshall Dyson Daniels and yonis F TR the same lineup from earlier and like it just didn’t have the success you know if that’s going to be

The case you’ve got to try and maximize these lineups and clearly that one didn’t work earlier I don’t know if it was right to go back to that you could throw Matt Ryan into some of that you could go with Jordan Hawkins who isn’t scared to shoot and is willing to let

The ball rip and sometimes just being a threat look they know Dyson’s not going to shoot you know you could use na as your kind of defensive guy there I think put in a guy like Hawkins for Dyson Daniels and get a little bit more offense out there on the court and see

What happens from that and that’s not what happened in this game and I think it’s part of why the Pelicans lost this was just also not a good matchup the Celtics are really good they look like a championship team right they look like a championship team you can’t say the same

For the Pelicans here but that’s okay because we’re not expecting them to be and now they get a chance to beat the Phoenix Suns if you do that that really is going to help you solidify a top six spots so this game is important I’m excited to be in the Smoothie King

Center I hope you are as well if you see me say hi I appreciate you listening to locked on Pelicans part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day as always I’m your host Jake Madison at Nola Jake on Twitter and I’ll be back with y’all tomorrow to recap the game

The New Orleans Pelicans loss to the Boston Celtics showed you that Willie Green needs to stick with the starting lineup more. Jake Madison breaks down what happened in the 3rd quarter but cautions that it doesn’t mean Jonas Valanciunas is the answer. If that’s the case then the Pels need to solve the center position this offseason even after Zion Williamson playing the 5 went well. And Dyson Daniels makes his return but did it go well?

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