Jeremiah Fears celebrated his birthday in style Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
Fears, who turned 20, led the way in the New Orleans Pelicans\u2019 best showing of the preseason.<\/p>\n
Fears finished with 16 points \u00a0and 5 assists in the Pelicans\u2019 101-97 victory over the Dallas Mavericks at American Airline Center. \u00a0Fears also had 3 steals and 3 rebounds.<\/p>\n
It was the second straight year Fears had a big game on his birthday. He finished with 20 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals last season in a loss to the Houston Rockets. This year he stuffed the stat sheet and got the win to go with it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a great feeling being able to step on the court and play the game I love on a special day to me,\u201d Fears said during a postgame television interview.<\/p>\n
The Pelicans improved to 2-1 in the preseason.<\/p>\n
Mosley used his third different starting lineup. The goal is to \u00a0get his players accustomed to different roles.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were 31 different starting lineups last year,\u201d Mosley said. \u201cSo these guys need to understand and we all have to keep seeing how these combinations work together. I think that\u2019s so important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s starters were Fears, Bennedict Mathurin, Saddiq Bey, Karlo Matkovic, and Yves Missi. It was the first preseason start for Bey and Matkovic. Missi, the only Pelicans\u2019 player to start all three games, finished with 6 points, 9 rebounds and 4 blocked shots. Matkovic made 3 of his 4 3-pointers and finished with 11 points. \u00a0<\/p>\n
In the first preseason game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Pelicans started Dejounte Murray, Herb Jones, Trey Murphy, Zion Williamson and Missi. \u00a0<\/p>\n
When they played the Miami Heat, the starters were Murphy, Missi, Williamson, Fears and Mathurin.<\/p>\n
\u201cGuys that originally started need to know what it\u2019s like to come off the bench,\u201d Mosley said. \u201cAnd guys that come off the bench need to know what it\u2019s like when you have to start a game. The intensity you have to have. The focus that you have to have. Those are great ways to do that now in the preseason.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fears understood the assignment, scoring his team\u2019s first seven points.<\/p>\n
Murray missed his second straight game dealing with a toe injury. But it didn\u2019t matter as the Pelicans put forth their best defensive effort. They forced 25 turnovers and limited the Mavs to 35.3 % shooting from the floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought our guys were very connected,\u201d Mosley said. \u201cThey were communicating with one another. Flying around, covering for one another. Doing it without fouling. We had two or three shot clock violations. That\u2019s just their ability to sit down and take on the challenge \u00a0of being the most physical team early to set the tone of the game.<\/p>\n
The Pelicans wrap up preseason play Friday when they host the Washington Wizards at the Smoothie King Center. The regular season begins Wednesday at home against the Indiana Pacers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jeremiah Fears celebrated his birthday in style Wednesday night. Fears, who turned 20, led the way in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":852743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,686,149,4057,166,6,675],"class_list":["post-859213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas-mavericks","tag-basketball","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-dallasmavericks","tag-mavericks","tag-nba","tag-pelicans"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117442861048186922","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859213","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=859213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}