[Post Game Thread] The Oklahoma City Thunder defeat the New Orleans Pelicans by 123 – 118

28 comments

1. Cj sucks

2. Can we return CJ

3. Is this what people mean by “the sweet release of death”?

4. It’s okay guys ..

   at least zion will have more rest – just in time for the playoffs

5. Just wondering what Dyson did to not get any time. I get he’s bad offensively, but Kira is bad on both ends…

6. Never seen more blatant coaching malpractice than that third quarter, holy shit. JV has the clearest fucking advantage and gets no touches in 3rd. Instead we force it to Ingram or CJ every play instead of actually moving the ball around like we did in the first half. Oh, and Herb got moved off Shai in favor of Josh Richardson… for some reason…

   Willie. Please explain to me how that happens. How do you just completely forget what gave you the advantage in the 1st half for an entire quarter?

7. There is virtually nothing positive to take away from this season aside from Trey’s development.

   Fuck CJ McCollum.

8. Pelicans PR team tomorrow morning: Zion Williamson upgraded to probable. “Feels ready” to play basketball again.

9. An unequivocal DISASTER of a season that should make every single member of this team, from on court to in the office, take a LONG look inward.

   I don’t even give a shit about whether Zion could have played or not, it doesn’t change the fact that you should have beaten both Minnesota AND the Thunder, and yet here we fucking are.

   CJ is absolutely unclutch. Every time he bricks a shot momentum screeches to a halt.

   From the #1 seed to this. What a hysterical failure on all accounts.

10. Willie Green said let me one up Tony Snell in the clippers game last year and played Kira for the first time in a fucking month

    and then ended the game by having the best shooter on the team inbound the ball while down 3

    Also I respect CJ and his availability in the face of our stars constantly missing so much time, but that will never excuse his perennially stupid and anti-clutch decision making. Threw away so many games this year, and saved his magnum opus for the final two, most important games of the season.

    Salute brotha but you gotta come off the bench next year if by some miracle the team is healthy for any extended stretch at all.

11. A fitting end to a frustrating season.

12. If you cant win at home against OKC you dont deserve the playoffs. Awful

13. Willie Green so blatantly lost the plot the last two games it feels like malpractice.

    I seriously cannot believe the decisions he made. And it cost the team the season.

    BTW, CJ shouldn’t have been playing with that hand injury. Net-negative.

14. Damn the Pels legit have no offensive sets. Jus have BI/JV post up 20 times a game and pray it works. Love willie, he’s an amazing coach, but man o man his X’s and O’s suck

15. “Why is the fanbase so pessimistic”

    Lolololololololololol

16. Total 180 from a year ago. Getting past the first round was the minimum expectation this year, but we lose at home in a play-in.

    I really like Willie, but there’s no excuses for this team to take a step backwards even without Zion. He needs to be on the hot seat next year. Staff changes are needed.

17. Either Zion plays 60 games next season or the franchise needs to change direction. Beyond done with a majority of this coaching staff, they can kick rocks, Willie needs significantly better people around him

    Immensely disappointed at so many levels. Shouts out to BI, and Trey taking a leap this season.

18. Never forget that Willie decided to play Kira for absolutely no reason and he was a -9 in 4 minutes.

19. We should all be thankful that OKC put us out of our misery. Prolly wouldn’t have beat MIN, and Denver would have EMBARRASSED us. Now we can go on with our regularly scheduled lives with out the worrying about the constant disappointment that this season has been. See you all next year.

20. Do ya’ll think if CJ had surgery rather than playing through would’ve helped us?

    This could’ve given us the opportunity to focus more on Trey while CJ gets to heal.

21. To me, this game turned on two plays:

    1. Josh Richardson flagrant foul on Giddey — completely sucked the air out of the building right after we had taken the lead with the long review and then the flagrant. We had them rattled and then they rallied and stabilized.
    2. 59 seconds left up one and we come down and give Jax the ball for some reason and he doesn’t know what to do. Shot clock down to 6 when he finally dumps it out to CJ and CJ misses a runner.

    I think we run away with it if Josh doesn’t make that boneheaded foul, and I think we score and put ourselves up 3 or 4 with <40 seconds if we just put it in BI’s hands.

22. I partly blame CJ but it’s really on the coaching staff. So many times we come out of the halftime, and I feel the other team makes a run. It happened with the warriors, Lakers, Wolves, and now OKC. It’s super frustrating.

    Our bench has been terrible, 17 pts tonight. I miss GTA spark.

23. The fact Zion didn’t try to comeback was extremely disheartening, if not understandable. Coaching has been awful for months, CJ shot us out of the last two games, and good lord can we find a way to actually shoot 3s.

24. I’ve debated how I wanted the Play-in to go. I can never watch and root for losses, but I also didn’t want there to be ANY excuses for David Griffin this offseason to try to talk his way out of not making MAJOR changes to this damn roster and coaching staff. All I know is this better be his last damn chance to get it right.

25. Anyone not named BI, Herb, Trey, or Dyson can get the fuck off this team. They’re all useless garbage cans who did nothing to help them this game. Can’t wait until later this year when we wait all year for Zion to be healthy again just for him to not “feel like zion” when we really need him. It’s going to be a fun time.

26. I feel like we lost this game in 2 ways.

    Terrible defensive rebounding in the 3rd quarter. Part of that was bad bounces, but mostly it was awful box outs/effort. Nothing Willie can do about that.

    Not going to Jonas like 75% of the possessions in the 3rd quarter. Like, just keep doing it? I’m normally not a big fan of post-ups, but in this game it was obvious they had ZERO answer. Idk if it was Willie or the players ignoring it, but how does he not get a bunch of touches in the 2nd half? Just unreal.

    Also #3, I think we maybe could’ve put in Josh for Jax and had BI or Trey play the 5. Like Jax was OKAY, but I don’t think the Thunder were going to punish that and it would’ve made offense way easier.

27. I’m not even upset. After seeing this team play for the past 3 months I had no faith in us winning this game let alone a playoff series. I came into the game thinking we were probably going to lose because nothing has changed. Willies gonna get outcoached, CJ’s gonna chuck shots and the bench is gonna be useless. The only hope we have next year is if zion is healthy for the playoffs cause the team is built around him and without him they are lost

28. by far the worst year to be a pelicans fan since the start of the david griffin era.

    2019-20: was fun seeing the newly assembled team for the first time. we weren’t great, but we were young and had nothing to lose. zions short playing time before covid was fun. then the bubble was depressing but it was depressing for everyone.

    2020-21: couple good moments, but overall depressing season especially with covid and everything. zion got his all star but at what cost. we were not a good team with bledsoe and adams. depressing.

    2021-22: started off real rough, but damn was the second half of the season one of the greatest things to ever experience as a pelicans fan. one of the happiest i been as a fan of this team, wish i could feel that excitement again. which we did this year but only for a short while

    2022-23: ah… what can i say. felt like we had the damn league in our hands at one point. zion was proving the world wrong. all the pieces were finally coming together. everything we’ve been going through lead up to this. this was gonna be year. the team from last year that gave the suns a run for their money have now added zion to the mix. what could go wrong? *sigh*

    and now after all this, the honeymoon period is officially over. i mean unless we pull an amazing off-seasonthen there’s just not much to be super excited for anymore. cj if he’s still here has traumatized us. zion we all know will inevitably will not have a healthy season. the depth outside of herb, trey, and jose will be anyone’s guess. and then there’s ingram who’s worked too damn hard that you just feel bad for him at this point.