The season opener for the New Orleans Pelicans (0-1) seemed all too familiar to fans. Last year, Anthony Davis went off for over 50 points in a losing effort to the Denver Nuggets on opening night.
Davis did have some help on Wednesday night with DeMarcus Cousins putting up 28 points on the evening along with Davis’ 33. However, poor shooting in the 2nd and 3rd quarters led to a 103-91 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies (1-0).
The game started out promising after an early back and forth saw the Pelicans pull away thanks to a strong start from Davis and Boogie. New Orleans got out to a 34-27 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Memphis got things going early in the second quarter with a 9-0 run to get the lead back. The Grizzlies wound up being up by as much as five points before the Pelicans made it a two-point ballgame as both teams entered the locker room at halftime.
The Pelicans got the lead back in the third quarter, albeit briefly before the Grizzlies started to close the door with a 79-70 lead in the third quarter.
The game was officially out of reach after Dillon Brooks made a 10-footer to give Memphis a 13 point lead with 4:36 left in the ballgame.
The Pelicans will head to the Smoothie King Center to take on the Golden State Warriors (0-1) Friday night with tipoff set for 8:30 PM.
Three Point Play:
Warm Homecoming for Allen: Late in the first quarter, Dante Cunningham went crashing into the scorekeeper’s table. He came out of the ballgame with a right elbow injury and former Grizzly Tony Allen was brought into the ballgame to a standing ovation.
The homecoming festivities weren’t done just yet as the Grizzlies played a tribute video of him after the first quarter.
“I had so many jitters in my body – butterflies –I mean whatever you want to call it.” Allen said of the ovation, “I was a little nervous. I’m glad they got that over with. It’s a lot of love from the city, a lot of love from the fans. I appreciate that. I’m kind of hurt we lost. I wish we could have had a better outing and a better result for today’s game, but for the most part, a huge respect for the organization.”
Improved Efforts on Offensive Boards: One of the worst aspects of the Pelicans game last season was getting offensive boards. There was some improvement in that department with 16 of their 51 rebounds being offensive. If they can continue to do that through the season, the Pelicans could make it competitive against several teams this year.
Poor Ball Movement: While the offensive boards were a good sign, their ball movement was another story. The Pelicans committed 18 turnovers and ended up with only 15 assists on the evening.
“I thought we started the first quarter playing the way we should.” head coach Alvin Gentry said of the ball movement, “I thought we had good ball movement, got good shots. From there on out, our ball movement wasn’t very good. We had eight assists the first quarter, we had seven the rest of the way. Too many easy drives; they weren’t 50-50 balls, they were 80-20 balls. We’ve got to get our share of those balls and we didn’t do that. I just thought our ball movement wasn’t very good at all.”
-Clint Domingue