The New Orleans Pelicans don’t expect a repeat when they host the Sacramento Kings for the second time in three nights Wednesday.
The Pelicans ended the Kings’ six-game winning streak with a resounding 129-93 victory Monday, their largest margin of victory this season.
“The key is how we respond to one of our most complete games of the season,” New Orleans head coach Willie Green said.
“We know Sacramento made a playoff run last season. We know they’re going to look at film. We know it’s going to be a more physical game. We have to be aware of all of that.”
The Pelicans will try to continue an offensive trend that has carried them throughout the first five games of a homestand that ends Wednesday.
In two games against Dallas and one each against Denver and Minnesota as well as the first game against the Kings, New Orleans has averaged 123.8 points and shot 52.2 percent from the floor and 43.5 percent on 3-pointers.
“We’re playing faster,” said Dyson Daniels, who has started at point guard in each game of the homestand while CJ McCollum has been injured. “We’re getting stops and getting out and running, which is when we’re at our best. We’re putting people in the right spots and that’s leading to layups and open 3-pointers.”
Zion Williamson scored 22 of his 26 points in the first half and New Orleans took a 13-point halftime lead Monday. Brandon Ingram scored 18 of his game-high 31 in the third quarter as the Pelicans took command.
Williamson shot 12-of-16 from the floor for his highest field-goal percentage of the season (.750).
“We couldn’t do anything with Zion,” Sacramento head coach Mike Brown said. “We will go back and watch the film and see why our double teams weren’t getting there on time, see how he split our double team as easy as he did.
“We were supposed to double-team him all night and I don’t think we got to him one time. And if we did get to him, he was going right through our double team without even blinking.”
The Kings’ streak was halted on the back end of a back-to-back, one night after a 129-113 victory at Dallas.
De’Aaron Fox had 30 points against the Mavericks and 43 two nights earlier against the Spurs, but managed just 14 against New Orleans, less than half of his 29.6 average.
“Back-to-backs are normal,” Fox said. “We just didn’t have a good game. Credit to them. They came out, they had a good game and we just played bad.
“But, at the end of the day, you have games like this, you try to throw that away, and we see them again (Wednesday).”
Domantas Sabonis had his seventh-consecutive double-double, but his 10 points were half of his season scoring average and his 10 rebounds were nearly three fewer than his average.
“From the start to the end, they kicked our behind,” Brown said. “We weren’t getting it done from the beginning. We did not show any resistance at all, no matter who we threw out there.”
–Field Level Media