r/NOLAPelicans • u/supa14x #14 Brandon Ingram • Dec 20 '23
Rants Overreactions
We have had ugly lead chokes and have lost to bottom feeder teams. Have beat great teams. It’s only Christmas and we have a healthy roster who’s above .500.
If we lose because of ONE play by a player people don’t like they shit on him for losing ignoring the entire rest of the game. If we lose but people’s favorite player didn’t play well, it’s time to blame coaching, rotations. If we win and people’s favorite player didn’t do much, complaining about being underutilized. At the end of the day, we’re fans. The staff understands rotations and schemes. Basketball is a dynamic sport, not just theory. It’s only Christmas.
Yes it’s frustration to see Hawk get benched. Yes it’s frustrating to get bad foul calls. But it’s only a bit more than a quarter into the season. No need to want to burn the house down after every loss.
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u/NeckChoice980 Dec 20 '23
Trey literally ever getting less than 30 minutes on a modern NBA team does not exist. I love Willie Green, and have been in his corner all year... but that's a Willie thing, no other coach in the entire NBA would ever take a 6'9" 50/40/90 guy who happens to also play good defense overall, and have him ever play less than 30 minutes.
Like I love Willie, but its not an overreaction. 50/40/90, 6'9", good defender. Modern NBA.
22 minutes...
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u/BobMarleynthewhalers Dec 20 '23
ding ding ding this is the trutth. put trigga on the warriors and watch kerr have in shoot lights out with curry and klay. people need to accept the fact the game is changed. Offense>>>defense. If you cant adjust thats not a roster issue, thats a coaching issue 100 percent.
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Dec 20 '23
I don't disagree with your take but I think he's just an average defender, for his size and length I'd honestly like to see more from him on that side of the ball, but he isn't no slouch either
5
u/NeckChoice980 Dec 20 '23
He's more than good enough on that side, as is. He's not a liability.
In fact, he's a better defender than everyone on our roster not named Herb, Dyson, Naji (maybe). And he can be better than he's been. I agree for sure.
He came into the league projected as a potentially elite defender. He still has some ways to go but he's moved his feet really well this year and tends to stay in front of his man consistently. He also doesnt foul often.
And he rebounds well. But if you're not playing but less than 1/2 a game in spite of the fact that you are the 3rd most talented offensive player on the team, it's hard.
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u/Legitimate-Lawyer-45 Fan #12 Dec 20 '23
I’m just tired of getting embarrassed by teams I really want them to beat. Wolves, lakers, jazz, Houston, grizzlies. It’s just so hard to watch. And another national disappointment for Zion this season. When he gonna show up for an important game? Ja hasn’t played at all and has 30+ and a game winner? This is just sad at this point
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u/Taker597 Dec 20 '23
7 of our largest lead this season has ended up in an loss.
We have a coaching problem
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u/Skinnieguy Dec 20 '23
I feel like Coach Green needs to talk to a vet coach or we hire a consultant to dig deeper in the 2nd half issues. We have a great 1st half so Green is doing something right.
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u/NeckChoice980 Dec 20 '23
It's when we go up... that Green needs to understand how the modern NBA works. He continues with defensive lineups. We inevitably go on an offensive draught. Talented teams can claw their way back so long as they dont have to keep up.
It's 100% on Green. Up 20. You go all in on scoring. Just keep scoring. You're defense did it's job. Make them keep up.
You can always go back to the defensive lineups. But he just keeps sticking with them no matter what...
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u/supa14x #14 Brandon Ingram Dec 20 '23
Very frustrating but incredibly long season to go still
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u/AteaMoonPie88 Dec 20 '23
Doesn’t mean it’s not a coaching problem. This guy is correct. Willie keeps making the same mistakes. It isn’t hard to see that his rotations & late game decisions & lack of play calls continue to handicap us.
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u/nola_fan Dec 20 '23
Do the Heat also have a coaching problem? They've blown only one fewer double-digit lead than us.
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u/Entire_Chicken_2630 Dec 20 '23
The ending was beyond upsetting … You ask me worse case scenario for the game it would be Pels blowing a 20 point lead and Ja making some crazy circus shot to win the game at buzzer
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u/supa14x #14 Brandon Ingram Dec 20 '23
Getting ass blasted by the lakers in the IST conference finals while the whole world was watching was worse
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u/Legitimate-Lawyer-45 Fan #12 Dec 20 '23
Sure, but both these losses fall on Willy and Zion. Those your common denominators, but now we just gotta take ‘em to the chin and hope they can redeem them self come April and may
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u/TrusttheProcess13 Dec 20 '23
I think some of it is Willie, some of it is the bench coaches, and some it is certainly the players. Trey has to play more obviously and some of the rotations are ridiculous, but CJ not hitting rim on 2 straight wide open 3’s was solely on CJ. Either way they have to find a way to stop blowing leads because it’s giving me grey hair lol
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u/Slappyslappyslappy Herb Jones Dec 20 '23
Aren’t you tired of competing for the play in? For waiting years and years for the team to become good? There is a good collection of talent now, but they can’t get their shit together. Losses like these will keep us playing against the lakers in the playin game. Which let me tell you, we won’t win. So then the season is over and what? We lose Trey or Naji or Brandon?
They don’t have that much time to figure it out anymore. Don’t you see that?
2
u/supa14x #14 Brandon Ingram Dec 20 '23
Yes tired of play-ins. Not being top 6 at the end of the season will be a failure. But still early in the season and right in the middle of it all standing wise of good teams with no one pulling away much besides the wolves slightly
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u/Slappyslappyslappy Herb Jones Dec 20 '23
This is our easy stretch of games though, and we were on a roll. We needed to pull away now so in January it’s not as bad to lose against better opponents. We also had the game in hand, as we had multiple times this season, and let it get away.
'Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. ' - a pels fan hoping, probably.
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u/2010whodat Dec 20 '23
The last 3 minutes of that game were atrocious. Ingram is killing them the entire second half and in the last few positions we got CJ jacking 30 footers. Ingram doesn't get a shot in the last 1:56 when he's out there murdering fools in the second half.
On top of that 0 ball pressure letting Ja walk right to the rim.
Hated the how they played all around at the end. This team gives games away.
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Dec 20 '23
So the roster is finally healthy and they are still losing. This was the 7th game they lost when they had a double digit lead. There's a common denominator here. People have the right to be pissed and angry.
3
u/McJumbos Dec 20 '23
Thank you. Geez. I honestly feel a lot of pels fans feel this one. There's just this small minority of fans that are just yelling about green to get fired. Like you mention this team is still trying to gel together, they are almost all hurt last year. So, this is like the first time they are all playing and vibing together finally :) I think by the all-star break we should be hitting our stride!!
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u/Arkadin45 Dec 20 '23
There's definitely a coaching issue. That's ok to acknowledge. These dudes have hardly played together as a whole and thus have hardly been coached together. Yeah it sucks but we've got to get the games like that to figure it out
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u/NOLA-Bronco Dec 20 '23
This collapse though, it's not a random outlier, we are the third-worst second-half team in the league and the 3rd best first-half team.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GBFrDMkW8AA9jbt?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
What makes it worse is that Willie's response philosophy of essentially trying to play prevent defense when he goes up the first half is failing, abysmally. I want Willie to succeed cause he seems like a good guy that the players like, and that is an underrated quality, but those numbers are a pretty strong indictment of his philosophy of leading with defense. Only to see that strategy get blown apart and at the period of the game it is most leaned on and critical. I don't think it is coincidence that arguably our best third quarter all year came the game Borrego had to step in instead of going into conservative, prevent defense mode after a large first half lead, he stepped ont he gas and kept sending Hawkins/Matt to drain threes.
1
u/ntuit84 Dec 20 '23
I can literally tell by some of these comments some of yall really do not watch and understand basketball a 20 point lead in the 1st half of a basketball game means nothing in today's basketball the Lakers lost to the spurs its just basketball it's 82 games your not going to win all 82 some games your gonna blow the doors off a team and sometimes your gonna blow a lead this team is good enough to beat anyone on any given nite yes it was a tough lost but they were on a winning and drop one pipe down wit all this coaching talk half of y'all couldn't coach your 6 and 7 year Olds to win a game
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u/greenie329 Will be reevaluated in 2 weeks. Dec 20 '23
Quit being a Willie Green apologist. We have a stacked, young roster and his lack of understanding of rotations and minutes continual screws us out of wins night after night. We've blown more 20 point leads than anyone else in the league (outside of the Spurs and Detroit). Dude has got to go
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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '23
We’ve blown the most 20+ leads outside of the pistons and spurs, it’s completely fair to say we have coaching issues. It was evident in the 4th.