Jeremiah Fears Shines but New Orleans Pelicans IMPLODE in Third Quarter | What Went Wrong?

Jeremiah Fears Shines but New Orleans Pelicans IMPLODE in Third Quarter | What Went Wrong?

There we go. It’s a live episode of Locked On Pelicans. Had some technical difficulties there to start. New season, new roster. Kind of the same old Pelicans. I’m going to tell you how the Pelicans beat themselves in the first game of the season. It’s Locked On Pelicans. Let’s go. You are Locked On Pelicans, your daily New Orleans Pelicans podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Welcome to another edition of Locked On Pelicans, the daily podcast covering your favorite team, the New Orleans Pelicans and NBA. Part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Available wherever you get your podcast and available on YouTube. I’m your host, Pelicans Insider, credential member of the media, JakeMadison at Nola Jake on Twitter. Here with y’all immediately after for a live show. The Pelicans lose 1281 122 season opener against the Memphis Grizzlies. A disappointing loss. This was a game the Pelicans should have won, kind of needed to win and really just lost themselves. So, we’re going to break down what happened in that third quarter. What happened with the defense? I want to look at some of the murky offense, too. But yet a strong performance from Zion Williamson. A really great showing from Jeremiah Fears. We’re going to cover it all in a live episode of Locked On Pelicans. And of course, thank you for making Locked on Pelicans your first listen today and every day. We are here Monday through Friday, the number one Pelicans podcast, covering everything you want to know about this Pelicans team. So, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast and join over 11, sorry, 12,000 Pelicans fans on YouTube as well, where we are live currently. And don’t forget, become an everyday means you listen Monday through Friday to the Lockdown Pelicans podcast. You can also watch us on the GF Coast Sports and Entertainment Network. Same place you watch your Pelicans play. So, the way the live show works here is I’m going to just do a regular show. I’m going to run through it. It’s going to be almost 27 minutes exactly. After that, I’m going to hit the outro video, then I’ll hang out with y’all for a little bit, look at the chat, answer your questions. But let’s run through the show first. So, the Pelicans losing to the Memphis Grizzlies 1228. Look, this is disappointing because the Pelicans were in command of this game. They had a 10-point lead going into the into the third quarter here and then proceeded to immediately blow it by allowing the Memphis Grizzlies to go on a 19-0 run. You can complain about the potential travel by John Mar. It was a travel. You can complain and nitpick certain things here, but the problem is if you give up a 190 run, you deserve to lose the game. If you play transition defense like they played, you deserve to lose the game. When some of your best players don’t show up, particularly in the second half, you deserve to lose the game. I’m not gonna really talk much about what the Memphis Grizzlies did because this is far more about the Pelicans and how poorly they played than what Memphis did to dominate this game. Yeah, John Mar was good. Jiren Jackson Jr. in some minutes was good. But the Pelicans should have won this game. They could have won this game. This is not a great way to start the season. There are some bright spots, don’t get me wrong. There are some things that look good in this. And you can start to actually see a little bit of the vision here. But against a short-handed already Memphis Grizzlies team, like you just you can’t do what the Pelicans did. And it starts with transition defense. This is where the Pelicans shot themselves in the foot repeatedly in this game. The Memphis Grizzlies had 22 fast break points. That’s unacceptable considering the Pelicans had a decent enough offense in this game. They weren’t terrible. They weren’t like incredible in some of this, but they weren’t outright bad. This is a situation where it’s twfold that caused this. So, part of it is on the Pelicans offense. If you’re an everydayer, you know what I’m about to say. And this is why you want to become an everyday because we talk about these things on the show. You’re going to get insight you can’t get anywhere else here. You know, if you fail to score at the rim, if you miss layups, if you miss runners, if you miss dunks and put backs and all of that, you have someone immediately taken out of the play. And all of a sudden, your opponent has a fast break. And that is the easiest way to score in the NBA is in transition. And think about it. When Zion drives, you know, from the three-point line, playing downhill, drives and goes up with a layup and then misses that, his momentum carries him out of bounds on the baseline, below the basket, past the basket, into the stands. It takes a second to get back because your opponent is already running. In this game, the Pelicans shot terribly at the rim. 43% of their shot attempts in this game came at the rim and they shot 55.3% on those shots. That’s a terrible number. That’s a terrible number. By comparison, the Memphis Grizzlies in this game shot 76.2% at the rim. That’s not going to work here if you’re missing these easy shots, especially against a team where Jiren Jackson Jr. fouled out where there’s no Zack Edy where Jock Landale is the is the big man down low. You you can’t miss shots like that because you gift easy transition opportunities to the Memphis Grizzlies. When you look at the transition numbers for the Memphis Grizzlies, they scored 173 points per 100 possession in transition. That would have by far led the league last year. This is where the Pelicans lost the game, right? And I said it’s twofold. It’s not them just missing shots at the rim that allowed the Memphis Grizzlies to run. It’s not even the turnovers that did it. New Orleans only had 14 turnovers in this. They were kind of fine in that regard. Truthfully, it was Memphis running after makes. This is laziness. This is something we saw in pre-season two. This is a team who after they had a made basket let the other team beat them down the court. That is unacceptable. That’s unacceptable. This was a problem in preseason. We all saw this. I’ve called it out on the show multiple times and it just happens in game one. You can’t do this. You can’t do this. We shouldn’t be this fired up. But this is a controllable thing. You know, this is one of those situations where like there’s things you can control and things you can’t control. This is one of the things the pelicans can control because it has to do with effort. When you make a shot, get back. As simple as that. when you make a shot, get back. And they weren’t doing that. You know, when you make a shot, the ball has to get inbounded. It takes a second to be able to do that. That’s when your team can hustle back. When guys rip a three-point shot and guys aren’t cutting back when it whether it comes from the corner or elsewhere, that’s a problem. That’s coaching. That’s on the players. It’s not one thing. It’s everybody here. But that is what killed them in this game. There were other things that killed them, too, but this was a really big part of it was the bad transition defense. That was their own making. This wasn’t like it was Memphis pushing the pace off of a a off of constant turnovers by New Orleans. They actually did a good job of not really turning the ball over a ton. This was just them doing their own thing. New Orleans turned the ball over on fewer than 14% of their possessions. Memphis turned it over 16% of the time. This is one of those things where this is an effort thing. The good news is it’s fixable. The bad news is do you actually think the Pelicans will fix this? I’m not as confident in that. We saw this in preseason. This should have been fixed by now. It wasn’t. That’s what lost them this game. That’s where that 19-0 run came from was them missing shots they should make and then just not getting back. And all of a sudden now you’re 01. Your starting center and Eve Mei is hurt. We’ll see who, you know, what what’s that’s going to look like. We’ll talk about that a little bit more next. And it’s just a winnable game that you refuse. You know, this is like the phrase would be like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, right? Isn’t it? That’s the opposite of it. It’s usually like snatching victory from the jaws of the defeat. But for the Pelicans here, it’s it’s a reversal. The Pelicans beat themselves in this one. And that makes it feel just like the same old same old Pelicans despite new leadership, a very much turned over roster. That’s what makes this opening night loss so disappointing. Even if you saw some good things, just stop the basketball. The Pelicans refused to do that. Really disappointing to see from New Orleans in this game. So, coming up next, let’s let’s be positive. We’ll get back to being negative a little bit later, but let’s be a little bit positive because y’all Jeremiah Fears, dude’s legit. I’m going to break down what I saw from him, what made his debut so impressive. That’s coming up here next in today’s episode of Locked On Pelicans. Today’s episode of Locked On Pelicans is brought to you by Mint Mobile. If you’re still overpaying for wireless, it’s time to start saying yes to saying no. 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And thank you for making Lockdown Pelicans your first listen today and every day. We are here Monday through Friday, the number one Pelicans podcast, covering everything you want to know about this Pelicans team. So, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Join over 11,000 Pelicans, 12,000 Pelicans fans on YouTube as well and become an everyday means you listen Monday through Friday to the Locked On Pelicans podcast. And if you’re an Everyday, let me know in the comments down below. For your second listen, make it locked on NBA Game Night. Did you watch all the games tonight? There are a ton of them here. Locked on NBA game night. I’m on there every Wednesday actually. It’s covering every single game across the association. Something only the Locked On podcast network can do with guest appearances by all of our hosts. Make Locked on NBA Game Night your second listen, especially on Wednesdays when I’m on there. So, we’re doing the live show here and I’m I’m seeing the comments. Don’t worry, I will be doing all of those things. We’ll be responding to all those in the bonus part of today’s episode of Locked On Pelicans, but we’re going to run through just the usual show here for Locked On Pelicans. So, let’s keep going with this. You know, there were some bright spots and I think one of the things that was a huge bright spot obviously is going to be Jeremiah Fierce, the rookie. The seventh overall pick I thought was phenomenal in this game. I I really have nothing to complain about with Jeremiah Fears in this game whatsoever. 17 points in a little over 18 minutes of action. Seven for 10 from the field. 70% a perfect three of three from the line, two assists, and just two turnovers. Look, one of those turnovers late in the fourth quarter was not great, but he’s a rookie. Like, what what do you expect? Those type of things are going to happen. So, I’m not really complaining when Jeremiah at times looks like a rookie. But what you saw from him is a dude who’s going to be a lead guard in the league. And this is going to tie into something I want to talk about in the next segment when it comes to the offense. You see the vision for him, right? This is someone who in this game got into the restricted area 1 2 3 4 5 six times. Six times and went five for six in the restricted area. That’s phenomenal for a rookie. And you see the speed, the way he’s able to get around his defender, attack the basket, get the shot up, and put it in. You see the herkyjerky kind of changing gears moves that he has. That’s what you call like the bag, right? And you saw him attack downhill. The rim get walled off. He stops, rises up, and gets the mid-ranger, right? That’s a really great change of pace kind of play from him. You know, compare him to Kyro Lewis Jr. who didn’t have that. It was just him going downhill, being fast, and attacking, and that was that. Here you see a deeper bag in a more advanced offensive game for Jeremiah Fears and he’s especially deadly in the pick and roll. And when you have players like Mi when he’s healthy being a pretty good pick and roll big man, Trey Murphy, who can be a pick and roll lob threat too, the role man there, you could even use him with Zion even though that’s not really what they do with Zion Williamson. You can see how deadly someone like Jeremiah Fears can be. He is really good at manipulating the screen and deciding on which way to go and how best to attack the defense. There are going to be some rookie moments. Absolutely. But you even saw him light up John Morant. John Morant, by the way, is not a good defender. So, I don’t know if that’s the biggest thing to say here, but it’s still kind of cool to be able to see the rookie do that. You know, the other thing that I talked about this week on the show, and then Antonio Daniels mentioned it on the broadcast, too, and that is he’s really good at using the the his left hand and his right-hander. Going to his left, going to his right. That’s a really impressive thing. Guys tend to be dominant with one hand. You know, Zion can attack multiple ways, but really wants to finish with his left hand, and he’s gotten better at that over time. Remember Julius Randall on this team? just would always attack going to the left side because he was left-handed and literally there was nothing to his right. It makes people really easy to defend. Fear’s already got some ambidextrousness to him here. So, it’s really impressive to see the type of game that he has. He did not come into this game and look like a rookie at all. That’s what was so impressive about Jeremiah Fears in this, right? He just went downhill, played his game, did not shy away from any matchup or the moment. I thought he was fine enough defensively, too. I don’t think he’s going to be a good defender this year, but I thought he was fine, frankly. You know, and you could have made the claim, especially once Jiren Jackson Jr. fouled out, that they needed to put Jeremiah Fears in over someone like Sadi Bay or a Herb Jones and sacrifice defense. just get the guy who can attack the basketball here um or attack the rim. And Jeremiah Fears really delivered on all of that. I was Look, you y’all know I’ve been very high on him going into this draft. He looks like just a playmaker, a lead guard. This team has needed more creation and they definitely found a lot of that in Jeremiah Fears. He looked really, really good. Really impressive debut from the rookie. We also got to see Derek Queen minutes. And look, that’s going to be important given the injury to Eve Mei here. Derek Queen in 14 and a half minutes of action. Look, it was a quiet debut. Three points, one of four from the field, one of two from the free throw line, five rebounds, four of them defensive. He had a nice block, three fouls, and a real dumb technical that he just got baited into and shouldn’t have done. We didn’t want to have too high expectations here because Derek Queen was playing his first NBA action. He didn’t have preeason, you know, even in Australia or against the NBA teams. It was just, hey, this is someone who was pressed into duty probably sooner than he would have preferred. Probably also because Hunter Dickinson, who was the first big man in off the bench, playing four four minutes 45 seconds or so, looked those minutes were rough, y’all. Those minutes were really, really rough. I don’t need to see any more Hunter Dickinson minutes, which means the backup big man duties. You know, really, we’re going to fall to Derrick Queen in this. It’s tough to judge him after not playing any preeason, you know. So, I’m not going to say much about it. I like the four defensive boards. You know, he’s a big guy. I like that he took a three when he had it, even if he didn’t make it. Like, it it’ll be fine. He might be the starting center by game two, which is a slight concern. I don’t think he’s ready for that. I also question the fit next to Zion Williamson. And it looks like we might be seeing this sooner rather than later. So, he’s going to need some time here, you know, and the injury to Eve Mi, let’s focus on that for a moment here, is concerning because they were already not deep at all at the center position. Cavon Looney out, Carlo Makovich out. You basically had Mei, Hunter Dickinson who was undrafted, and Derrick Queen who hasn’t played at all. Now Mi goes down and you have Hunter Dickinson and Dererick Queen that they need to consider waving Jaden Springer and signing somebody. They really really need to consider doing that. Look, DeAndre Jordan is available someone like that just to get you someone that you can trust because the depth right there is rough. You need good center play. I actually thought Mi did pretty well in this game. Kind of a quiet night statwise, but I thought he looked overall pretty good. you need somebody there. They don’t really have somebody there. That’s a cons a concern. That’s the best thing I can say about it. So, we’ll see what they end up doing there. But, that’s something that they’re already pressing. Look, it’s the Pelicans. It wouldn’t be the Pelicans if someone who’s barely played for the team is now pressed into starting duty, just like Derrick Queen is likely going to be. Quiet night for him. I we don’t really need to grade him given that he just didn’t get any of the preseason run. This was 14 minutes was more than what I was expecting from him in here. Didn’t look great. I don’t think he looked like trash, but what do you what do you expect? Fears though looking good. Very, very pleased with what we saw from Jeremiah Fears. Let me know what you think about both rookies in the comments down below on YouTube here. So, coming up next, and then after that, we’ll get to your questions. We’ll interact with the chat and I’ll hang out with y’all for a little while here. I want to get into kind of the offense and what it looked like. you know, where was Trey Murphy? What what happened to Jordan Pool as the game went on? You you can see some of the vision for what they want, but is this actually the right way to go? That’s coming up here next in today’s episode of Locked On Pelicans. Today’s episode of Locked on Pelicans is brought to you by Skiims Men’s. When I found out Ski was making men’s underwear, I’m wearing a pair right now. I was intrigued. I’ve heard so much about the quality from friends and family, so I had to give it a try. And let me tell y’all, it lives up to the hype. 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After you place your order, select podcast in the survey and select locked on Pelicans or locked on NBA in the drop-own menu that follows over at skimsmens.com. And thank you for making Locked on Pelicans your first listen today and every day. We are here Monday through Friday, the number one Pelicans podcast covering everything you want to know about this Pelicans team. So please subscribe wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube as well. Don’t forget, you can watch us on the GF Coast Sports and Entertainment Network every single weekday at 10:30 a.m. Same place you watch your Pelicans play. This show will be on there. If you just leave the channel on, turn it on in the morning, you’ll see Locked on Saints, locked on Pelicans, locked on LSU with Matt Mosona, and Locked On SEC. For your second listen though, make it all those shows, but really make it Locked On Saints. Ross Jackson, good friend of mine, is covering everything black and gold, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. So, let’s keep talking about the Pelicans losing 128 122 to the Memphis Grizzlies. Again, a game that they should have won. A game that they should absolutely have won. There’s no excuse for not doing this. So, they need to really look at this game and be like, here’s some clear areas that we need to improve. And again, the good news is a lot of the areas that they they you know, the the transition defense and all that, those are things that they control. There are things you don’t control. If someone just gets hot and can’t miss, you don’t control that. This is stuff they can control and can quickly improve upon. That’s what makes it okay, right? If you’re a longtime everyday, you remember the start of last season, I kept saying silver lining, silver lining, silver lining. things only become silver linings if you actually use the lessons from those and improve in the areas that you need to improve. And one of the things the Pelicans did not do last year was you see an obvious mistake or something that can be improved upon repeatedly and then it just never got better. If you don’t improve upon this, that’s a concern. And given their past track record, I don’t necessarily expect things to get significantly better. That’s what’s so worrisome about seeing some obvious mistakes. mistakes that we were able to predict and be like, why didn’t y’all fix that? Like, do you just have this inability to do that sort of thing? And at times it feels that way. And that’s what makes you kind of not feel good about this loss here. It’s why I’m not going to call it a silver lining. I learned my lesson, y’all, on that one. So, let’s look at the offense though here, I think, a little bit. You know, look, Zion Williamson played well. 27 points on 10 of 21 shooting, seven of 12 from the line, nine rebounds, five assists. Dude was unbelievable defensively. When he gets to play like instinctual Zion Williamson defense, five steals in this one, that’s when he’s absolutely at his best. He looked good. He looked good. It took him a little while to get going. But I think that’s also partially by design of this offense. And here’s where I’m going to pose a question to y’all. Is that actually a good thing? it. The everydayers have heard me talk a lot about creation. If you’ve heard me on the radio, TV, other places too, you’ve heard me mention creation, self-creation, and creation for others. And the Pelicans have been lacking that in past years, but they really have a lot of that this season. However, however, you still need to rely on Zion Williamson. You saw a bit of the vision for the offense here, right? Zion Williamson 27 points. Herb Jones 17, Jordan P 17. Jeremiah Fears 17. Trey Murphy should have had closer to 20 13 points. He was pretty rough in this game. You see the the the scoring duties kind of being shared around. Part of this is because this team is looking to kind of Zion proof the offense a little bit. If Zion goes down, you have other guys that are capable of kind of being your number one guy or creating for others. That’s an important thing. But shouldn’t it have just been Zion early on and kind of build up a bigger lead? You know, Trey Murphy, they were kind of forcing the ball through him. He was five of 15 on the night. That’s not going to be good enough. You need to see more from him there. You know, Jordan P started off hot and then really quieted down as the game went on. That’s not ideal. You need to kind of find the right balance. And when you have almost like this many cooks in the kitchen, it can be kind of tough. You see the vision. You see the shared creation, the shared shotmaking, the shared scoring, but is that exactly what you want to be doing all as much as they are, or do you just want to do that in the minutes that Zion’s not out there on the court? This is something that I’m going to be keeping an eye on here, but you do see a little bit of what they’re trying to do. And they did come close to winning and it almost worked. And if they make one or two more shots, we’re going to be talking about this very, very differently. So, it’s worth to see kind of what happens with this on Friday in the home opener against Victor Wimbeyama. So, that’s going to do it for this episode of Locked On Pelicans. We’re going to do the live bonus show after this, but we’re going to hit the hit the video at the end here. So, as always, I’m your host Jake Madison at Nola Jake on Twitter. This is the Locked On Pelicans podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Stick with me if you’re live on YouTube. If not, I’ll see you all tomorrow. All right, we’re back with Locked On. Let’s call it Locked On after dark here. I haven’t done a live show in a little bit, so that truthfully wasn’t my best, but I appreciate y’all hanging out with me here. Um, filling up the chat. I see the comments here. Let’s get to kind of what y’all want to talk about. I’ll answer a lot of your questions here. I see Brandon 63 says queen is a bust. We don’t know that yet. Like let’s not overreact that hard. This is a disappointing first game because it falls in line with what we’ve seen from this team in years past. And that’s not ideal, right? But we don’t and that’s why I don’t think it’s an overreaction to say that this is a disappointing loss that this is something that you know can normally you look at the first game you’re like it is what it is. Don’t worry about it. Queen, we don’t know yet. He should probably is going to be fine. It’s literally his first game. So, there is that to it. But the other parts that are kind of carryovers from last season, that’s the part that’s concerning here. So, let’s get into a couple more y’all’s questions here. Um, Mike Deflexa says, “Queen is going to be all right.” Yeah. Um, Tristan the D the Shark says, “What do you think about the officiating, Jake?” I mean, I I I don’t care. Like, you you gave up a 190 run. you gave up a 19-0 run. I I don’t care about the officiating. I don’t care about the mistra on John Morant. Control the things you can control. And if the Pelicans do a slightly better job of that, they win this game. So I I the officiating doesn’t bother me really whatsoever when it comes down to it because of that stuff. Um I want to look at a couple of things. I have access to some like pretty intense like almost secretive advanced stats and things that I can track now this season which going to really provide a lot of really great insight to y’all. I’m curious though to see where the Pelicans kind of struggled in certain areas. But I also want to I want to trying to find the transition numbers. Where is that? There we go. Um, yeah, Memphis was elite in transition and New Orleans really really struggled to stop that particularly particularly in yikes in the third quarter. They were not good in that regard. Same in the fourth quarter, too. They really lost the transition battle and that’s something New Orleans just can’t let happen like it did here. Um, let’s see. Uh, Mike Mets says any team with a decent center is going to kill us. Maybe like they have a decent center in Jiren Jackson Jr. I’m a big Santi Alama fan and it wasn’t like one of those things where I thought that that’s what killed the team. It was their own fault on this. So I don’t ne necessarily know if good or decent centers are going to kill New Orleans. You know Web is going to be a matchup problem, but I actually thought Mi did a did a pretty good job. So, you know, that’s something to kind of keep in mind. Arthur Cole says, “How short is Willie Green’s leash?” it. Look, put it this way. It should be short. I don’t know if it’s actually short or not, but it should be short. Simple as that. This is a key season. You’re trying to make the postseason the the lease the leash needs to be short. If it’s not, that’s a that’s a concern about the way the team is operating in my opinion. I’m not saying whether he should be fired or not, but the leash should be short, I think, here. Um, hey it’s Hey, it’s Liam says, “Was there a reason Willie didn’t play Hunter Dickinson after Mei went down?” Yeah. Did you see how bad the four f four five minutes that Hunter Dickinson played? He was a minus 12 in four minutes, four and a half minutes of action. A no, just I I don’t want to see any more Hunter Dickinson minutes. He was not good in this. I didn’t think he was particularly great in preseason either. You know, he’s an undrafted guy. It’s not like we’re looking for him to be great. It’s not that we’re expecting him to be great, but I would rather just play Derek Queen. And those minutes when he was out there on the court were really, really rough in my opinion here. Um, let’s see. Yeah. Um, Ross Goodram says Queen was slow and unaware. He had a couple good moments. Like, it’s his first NBA action. Like, what what do you kind of, you know, expect, right? Like, I think that’s going to be one of those things where it’s going to take him a little bit of time. you know, if you have Mi and Looney available, you don’t need to put too much pressure on Queen. And in my opinion, there’s already a lot of pressure on Queen just because of what they gave up to go and get him. But now he’s got even more pressure. And frankly, that’s not actually fair to him and he shouldn’t be put in this position, but because of the Pelicans injury luck, as it often is, he’s he’s going to be in that spot. So that that’s rough and disappointing to see here. um that he’s going to be pressed into duty, but you know, trial by fire, I guess, in a sense for Derek Queen here. So, we’ll see. You know, it’s it’s it’s a real interesting start to the Pelicans season. That’s like new season, kind of new Pelicans, more of the same. Um I saw the Clippers score at halftime. I haven’t seen what else it is. Oh boy, they’re going to lose and that is terrible here. Um pressure is a 2 was wave. We should drop Spring or something. Like they they they should wave Springer now. I mean, guess let him fly back with y’all, but they need to wave him inside another big man. They need some big man depth because you cannot play Hunter Dickinson. Simple as that. Like, sorry. Uh Cody Arseno says, “Every day you’re here. Love the content.” Oh, I appreciate y’all listening. Look, I appreciate everyone who’s been hanging out with me here, staying up late, watching this game, interacting with me. Whether you watch the show every day or if you watch the show once a week, just making Lockdown Pelicans part of your day is something I greatly appreciate. This is my 10th year, the start of my 10th year doing this show. I’ve been covering the team for 16 years now. It’s a lot of years. Um, so I appreciate everyone who’s been listening and all of that for a long time. Yeah, Fears is definitely ready. Um, Memphis had 12 block shots and it seemed like they were all against number one and Trey Murphy III. I don’t I think I might be able to track that potentially and see who had their shot blocked. Um, hold on. Let’s see. I have access to like more stats than I’ve had before that could potentially help. I don’t know if I have access to that one. I’m still kind of learning some of these things. So, um, it’s going to lead to a lot of really good insight for y’all. Yeah. Um, Zion shot was blocked four times in this one. Herb had three shots blocked. Jordan Pool had two. Only Trey Trey Murphy only had one shot of his blocked, by the way. Um, so yeah, there you go. But that happens to Zion. When you play downhill and score like that, that’s naturally going to be a thing here. Fears didn’t have a block shot. is really just the starters for the most part. Sadiq Bay had one, Derek Queen had one. You know, with Zion, I’m not really worried about that. You know, it’s just they got to finish better. One of the things when you look at Zion in this is 10 of 21 from the field, he needs to be scoring a little bit better than, you know, he does at the rim. Um because that’s what kills them also in transition defense. So, there is that aspect of it, too. He missed one, two, three, four, five shots in the restricted area. You’ve got to get a little bit better about that. I don’t mind one or two blocks, but that’s too high of a number. He needs to be shooting like 50% or better, particularly down low here. Um Joshua says, “Why doesn’t Z get all the calls other stars get?” He kind of does. If you look at his free throw rate and like what his free throw numbers are, they’re just as high, if not higher, than almost everybody in the league. But also, big men are officiated differently than guards. Guards get you you need less contact to send a guard to the line. This is not how it should be, but it’s just kind of how it is. So, that’s something to keep in mind here. Um, stop playing Hawkins. Put Jose in. I love the rookie. Zion forced the ball up a little bit too much. I mean, maybe, but you need Zion to do some of that. In terms of Jose, him not getting any minutes, I thought was kind of surprising. They really wanted to give Jordan Hawkins some run. He hit his two threes and he rebounded decently well. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know if I really have a complaint there. You know, you can’t play José Alvarado with Jeremiah Fears. That back court is way, way too small. So, if you’re going to play Fears 18, 19, 20 minutes, that’s going to kind of limit what you can do, at least until you get Dejante Murray back and then it maybe changes things. But that’s something that you have to kind of keep in mind that you couldn’t play Fierce and Jose together. So, do you want to play Jose and Jordan Hawkins? I don’t know if I like that any better. So, you know, right now it just seems like it’s going to be one of fears or Alvarado, though. I do wonder if you’re going to see more Jose in Friday’s game here. Um, Chris Calvin says, “What did you think about the offense tonight? Felt like it was a lot less isobo ball than we’ve seen from Willie Green.” I can actually give you the detailed breakdown on what their offense was like throughout the night here. Hold on. Um, I I got all the detail plays. It’s really cool. Now, um, in terms of this, so in terms of isolation, do I not? Oh, I won’t get this until tomorrow probably. Um, they were really active in the pick and roll, which I really, really liked. It’s missing. I don’t have all the stats yet. I’ll have to share that with y’all a little bit later. I have access to Synergy Sports this year, so that gives us a lot more insight into things than I’ve like truly ever had before. And so that’s intriguing. So the Pelgens only had 11 isolation plays. Keep that in mind. 11 isolation plays. They were not good in that, but neither was Memphis here. It was really other things that, you know, kind of got it. I thought the offense, truthfully, was kind of fine. I really didn’t see a huge problem with it. I don’t love the kind of dribble handoffense that they had at times. That wasn’t ideal to me. I’d like to see more pick and roll ball handler. New Orleans did a not great job with that. You know, that had to do with them kind of just missing bunnies at the rim. If they make some of those shots, this game looks completely different. So, keep that in mind um with it as well. So, we’ll see. Yes, Fears has no fear. Paging Jeremiah Robinson Earl. No, that’s that’s definitely not it. I don’t know if BB Bowl is the move. I know everyone wants to see bull bull, but look, like maybe maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea. Something, right, is kind of what you what you need here. All right, I got to go do a couple of other locked on things. So, I appreciate everyone jumping in here, hanging out with me. We’ll do more of these as the season goes on, but I wanted to hang out with y’all, spend some time with y’all on opening night here. That was frustrating game, but I’m glad real basketball is back. So, again, as always, I’m your host, JakeMadison, Nola Jake on Twitter. This is the Lockdown Pelicans podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Be back with you all tomorrow. Going to have a guest on the show. It’s going to be a lot of fun. See you then.

Pelicans stumble in season opener against Grizzlies. Can they bounce back from defensive woes and capitalize on rookie talent?

New Orleans falls 128-122 to Memphis despite a 10-point halftime lead. Jake Madison analyzes the Pelicans’ transition defense issues and praises Jeremiah Fears’ impressive 17-point NBA debut. The discussion covers Zion Williamson’s strong performance, injury concerns impacting roster depth, and the team’s evolving offensive strategy.

Tune in for expert insights on how the Pelicans can address their defensive lapses and leverage their young talent for future success.

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