After two defeats in a row, the New Orleans Pelicans (40-30) celebrated an important home victory. Against the Boston Celtics (47-23) Anthony Davis again made a really strong game and helped his colors win 108:89 (BOXSCORE).
New Orleans were under a bit of pressure after losing two games in a row and slipping to eighth place in the West, but at first they couldn’t do much: The Spalding didn’t want to get into the basket for three minutes, the Celtics made the first eight points of the game. As a result, Anthony Davis helped the Pels into the game. However, there was not much scoring on both sides, the Celtics pushed their game onto the hosts and often took the pace out of the game.
Due to the failures of the Celtics (Irving, Smart, Brown, Theis, Hayward) the thin rotation became partly noticeable. Although the defense was strong again, there were still some coordination problems for slight Pelicans points. Offensively, Jayson Tatum was the best option in the first half, who showed all his arsenal of moves without Uncle Drew. But New Orleans now attacked the big line-up with Greg Monroe and Al Horford better, Davis remained active so that the hosts were back on two points for the break (47:49).
And this trend was confirmed. The brow quickly caught Aron Baynes’ fourth foul and Horford also had little to counter Davis’ force. New Orleans now hit 50 percent of the litters, and role players such as E’Twaun Moore and Nikola Mirotic now obviously had more self-confidence and helped that the lead was even double-digit in the meantime.
The Celtics continued to generate too few stops, Cheick Diallo, backup center of the Pels, had already reached a new career high with 16 points at the beginning of the fourth quarter. On the other hand, Boston only scored 3 points in the first four minutes of the final section – the game slipped the team of coach Brad Stevens. The Pels lead grew to 20 points, the drop sucked early and there was still a few minutes of garbage time.
The best scorer of the Pels was Davis, of course, who cooled off a bit after the break, but still scored 34 points (14/24 FG) and 11 rebounds. The backup Big Mirotic (16, 10 rebounds) and Diallo (17 and 6) were also convincing, while Jrue Holiday (7, 2/5 FG, 4 assists) was no factor at all this time. At Boston, rookie Tatum (23, 9/14 FG) stood out, Terry Rozier (13), Marcus Morris (17) and Greg Monroe (12) scored in double figures, while Horford (6, 3/11 FG, 4 Rebounds) disappointed.