After falling to the Los Angeles Lakers three nights ago, the New Orleans Pelicans faced one final task: beat the Sacramento Kings or watch your season end. New Orleans responded in a big way as they secured the eighth seed with a 105-98 victory over the Kings.
HOW IT HAPPENED:
The contest started off with both teams playing very aggressively on defense, but Brandon Ingram and Jonas Valanciunas paced the Pelicans to an 11-9 lead, with Ingram hotting the only three-pointer of the contest in the first five minutes.
New Orleans found themselves down as much as seven points late in the first quarter, but Trey Murphy III hit a critical three off of a long rebound to cut it to a two-point lead for Sacramento at the break.
The first run of the second quarter was just as tight as the first frame with it being tied at 31 with 7:20 to go in the opening half. Valanciunas led New Orleans with 10 while De’Aaron Fox led the Kings with 11.
Over the next minute, the Pelicans went on a 7-0 run charged by a Murphy three followed by a pick-and-roll dunk from Larry Nance Jr. However, Nance wasn’t done as he got a steal on the other end and fed it to Murphy in the corner, who dished it back to Nance for another jam and forced the Kings to take a timeout.
Pelicans closed out the first half leading 54-45 over the Kings in the final play-in game of the season. New Orleans had shooting percentages of 50/50/85.7 in that first half with Valanciuas leading with 12 while Ingram, Nance, and Marshall had 9 and Murphy had 8. For Sacramento, Fox led the way with 18 while Damontas Sabonis had 10.
Early in the third, the Kings cut it to eight points before two big defensive plays from Herb Jones and Ingram led to back-to-back threes from CJ McCollum and Jones to make it a 65-51 lead for the Pelicans three minutes into the second half.
Sacramento made it interesting down the stretch, outscoring the Pelicans 23-18 over the final minute minutes to make it an 83-74 game with just one quarter to go.
Halfway through the final quarter, New Orleans led Sacramento 97-77 with a spot in the Playoffs against Oklahoma City on the line.
Sacramento got a few fortunate bounces in the final minutes, but the Pelicans lead was just too much as New Orleans advances to the playoffs with a 105-98 victory.
BIG NUMBER: +24
One of the big differences between the two teams in this game was the effectiveness of the Pelicans bench, outscoring Sacramento’s reserves 34-10 to keep New Orleans ahead for most of the game and put them back in the Playoffs.
PLAYER OF THE GAME: Brandon Ingram/Jonas Valanciunas
Ingram and JV were dominant when the Pelicans needed them most as Ingram had 24 points on 10-20 shooting, six assists, and six rebounds. Valanciunas was a menace down low with 19 points on 8-16 shooting and 12 rebounds.
UP NEXT: New Orleans will advance to the first round of the NBA Playoffs where they’ll face the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder beginning on Sunday night at 8:30 p.m.