New Orleans Pelicans: Blueprint For Dethroning The Kings
By Owen Sanborn
Exactly a week ago, the New Orleans Pelicans took home a 106-100 victory over the Sacramento Kings at their own house. Early on in that game, the Kings were the ones in control, utilizing their strong half court offense to create easy scoring opportunities, while stifling the Pelicans offense on the other end.
A leaky third quarter defensively lead to their demise, allowing the Pelicans to sneak away with a big road victory.
A point of emphasis for New Orleans defensively was to contain the human bulldozer, DeMarcus Cousins, while he was in the post. Now, this venture is much easier said than done, but the Pellies were able to neutralize him somewhat in the first half by sending over extra bodies to help.
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In terms of limiting Cousins’ scoring, the double teaming strategy worked. However, sending extra attention towards Cousins created holes on the weak side and New Orleans time and time again would get burned by good ball movement that would result in easy shot opportunities.
Cousins is much improved when it comes to recognizing and passing out of double teams this season.
As for when the Pelicans tried to put Anthony Davis on Cousins one on one in the second half? Well …
Not too many defenders around the league are going to be able to contend with that. When Boogie is hungry, he is most likely going to eat.
Along with the likes of Cousins, Sacramento also likes to post up Rudy Gay on one of the elbows against smaller small forwards. Tyreke Evans struggled with this matchup during the first meeting, and often required assistance from a second defender.
Gay recognizes the help coming from Eric Gordon almost immediately and makes the smart pass over the Ben McLemore. This sets off a chain of events that sends the Pelicans’ defense into a shuffling mess, which eventually leads to an easy lay in for McLemore.
It is needless to say that the Pelicans refrained from that kind of double team for the rest of the night.
That is what makes the Kings so difficult to defend at times, they have two players that require a double team in the post, a killer to any defensive scheme. Cousins and Gay are terrible a matchup defensively for Evans and Davis because of their size and girth, which makes playing them one on one a stiff challenge.
If New Orleans elects to continue to send help on Tuesday night, then their defensive rotations must be sharp.
An interesting wrinkle that Monty Williams threw at the Kings offense was the switch to a 2-3 zone look late in the first quarter.
Playing a zone makes the defense more susceptible to offensive rebounds, but it also relegates the opposing teams big man to operating from the free throw line extended to act as a safety valve for the perimeter players.
As you can see in this possession, at no point does Cousins try to assert himself deep in the painted area for a post up opportunity. Instead, he hovers near the free throw line, looking for a chance to pierce the middle of the zone.
That chance never comes, but Nik Stauskas took matters into his own hands and drilled home a contested three pointer. Despite the result, the zone provided a great defensive sequence for the Pelicans.
Now, this isn’t Syracuse playing against some mid-major college. The 2-3 zone will not work for long stretches of time during an NBA game. But, I do like the fact that Williams made an adjustment in an attempt to stifle the momentum Sacramento was gaining within the painted area.
The length of Davis, Holiday and Asik (when healthy) could cause fits for opposing offenses when set up in a zone look for short periods of time.
These two teams are on the cusp of making noise in the Western Conference as early as this season. Taking a second straight game from the Kings could pay tremendous dividends for the Pelicans later on in the season when it comes to the race for a playoff spot.
I know there is no such thing as a big game in November in the NBA, but I have a feeling this one is going to get a bit frisky.