New Orleans Pelicans: Loss against Spurs latest in recurring theme

The New Orleans Pelicans’ Saturday night loss to the San Antonio Spurs had a familiar feel to it, and isn’t anything new to this team.

The New Orleans Pelicans fell to the San Antonio Spurs Saturday night in a 109-95 game that saw San Antonio seize the lead at the end of the first quarter and firmly hold onto it until the last buzzer.

If you felt a sense of deja vu watching this game, your brain could be on to something.

Jrue Holiday had himself a game, notching 29 points on 13-of-21 shooting with eight assists. Nikola Mirotic finished the game with 22 points and 16 rebounds. The team as a whole played a solid defensive game, failing to give away open looks on the perimeter and keeping the energy high. New Orleans still wasn’t able to walk away with the win, though.

The problem: If Anthony Davis doesn’t make a major impact on the game, the Pelicans struggle.

Despite posting 17 points and eight boards, it never felt like AD was about to take over and be unstoppable for even a period of time. The Brow hung five blocks on San Antonio’s offense, but they came in quiet fashion, as none of the blocks sparked momentum in favor of the Pels.

This is a recurring theme for Davis and New Orleans. Their contest against the Spurs is the second loss out of the two games where Davis has scored fewer than 20 points, with the other loss coming against the Golden State Warriors on Halloween.

Last season, they lost 12 out of the 16 games that Davis failed to score at least 20. In six of the 12, All-Star teammate DeMarcus Cousins scoring 20 or more points wasn’t even enough to offset the absence of Davis’ impact.

There are obviously other factors that influence the Pelicans’ ability to secure a win, such as reliable play from the role players. History lends itself to the possible truth, however, that when Anthony Davis doesn’t make his mark on the game in a big way, New Orleans needs a near perfect night from the rest of the roster to topple opponents.

This should be concerning for both Davis and Pelicans fans. While their current roster boasts more depth than it has in years past and it has players with takeover potential in Holiday, Mirotic and Julius Randle, if this team plans to make a real run to contend, it will need to win consistently against all odds.

With incessant chatter about the Brow’s future with the franchise, nobody knows how long New Orleans’ window will remain open. When the time comes, factors like his supporting cast and the help surrounding him will most likely influence his decision on where he wants to play.

The answer for the Pelicans could be a roster move, rotation change, or even just a surge of fantastic play from the right guys on the squad. But it is borderline gospel that they will have to do something big to find a way to win games on nights where Anthony Davis doesn’t have an MVP-level showing.