James Borrego has preached all season long about his team\u2019s resiliency and the players not dropping the proverbial sword.<\/p>\n
Well, that sword shattered into pieces on the floor of Sacramento\u2019s Golden 1 Center on Friday night.<\/p>\n
A team still trying to win games because it has no draft picks lost to a tanking team that threw in the towel months ago.<\/p>\n
The Pelicans blew a 17-point lead to the Sacramento Kings in a 117-113 loss. Just two weeks removed from a five-game winning streak that may have made observers think they were figuring things out, the Pels now have lost seven straight games.<\/p>\n
This latest one came against the team with the third-worst record in the league.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe gave up three 30-point quarters defensively,\u201d Borrego said. \u201cI thought that was the game. Bottom line.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pelicans led 30-21 at the end of the first quarter and then followed that up by giving up 34, 30 and 32 points over the next three quarters.<\/p>\n
The Kings have a tradition of lighting a purple victory beam after wins. They haven\u2019t lit the beam much this season, but they got a chance to on Friday. At the same time, they dimmed the last flicker of light the Pelicans had this season.<\/p>\n
The Pelicans (25-53) are guaranteed to finish with less than 30 wins for the second season in a row. It\u2019s the first time in franchise history they\u2019ve put together back-to-back seasons with less than 30 victories.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the bad news. Here\u2019s the good news: There are only four more games to watch, including two at the Smoothie King Center. The Pelicans host the Orlando Magic on Sunday and the Utah Jazz on Tuesday, then hit the road Friday and Sunday against the Boston Celtics and Minnesota Timberwolves, respectively.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust keep competing,\u201d Borrego said after Friday\u2019s loss. \u201cThat\u2019s the bottom line. Sprint through the finish line. Don\u2019t give in. The goal is to go win two games at home right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Borrego said earlier in the week that there have been no discussions to sit any players. But at some point over these next four games, the Pelicans should give the rookies and two-way players more minutes.<\/p>\n
These past few games, it\u2019s been rookie Jeremiah Fears showing the most fight. Fears matched his career-high with 28 points Friday. He also had eight rebounds, six assists and made five 3-pointers. The 19-year-old Fears is the youngest player in league history to score 25 points with at least five rebounds, assists and 3-pointers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s\u2019 what development and growth is about,\u201d Borrego said. \u201cHe\u2019s stacking high-quality games together. He\u2019s impacting winning. His effort defensively is there. Obviously, he\u2019s making big plays for us offensively. I\u2019m really proud of his growth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seeing Fears\u2019 growth is promising.<\/p>\n
But seeing your 6-foot-3 rookie point guard also lead the team with eight rebounds in a game is not. Rebounding and dependable 3-point shooting should be high on Joe Dumars\u2019 list of priorities this offseason. The Pels were outrebounded 46-36 on Friday. They\u2019ve been outrebounded in every game of the seven-game losing streak.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s got to become a mindset for this group, for this organization going forward,\u201d Borrego said. \u201cCan you rebound the ball or not? That will define if this group takes the next step or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s loss to the Kings was a step backward.<\/p>\n
Be careful. Don’t step on that sword.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Borrego has preached all season long about his team\u2019s resiliency and the players not dropping the proverbial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3796],"tags":[7,6,478,470,4073,4072,675],"class_list":{"0":"post-698787","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-pelicans","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-new-orleans","11":"tag-new-orleans-pelicans","12":"tag-neworleans","13":"tag-neworleanspelicans","14":"tag-pelicans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116349438144612376","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}