Pelicans begin life without injured Cousins

NEW ORLEANS — It was the best time the New Orleans Pelicans had seen in years.

The team entered its game against the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday with its best record (27-21) in three years. It was coming off a significant victory against Southwest Division-leading Houston, its seventh win in eight games, which gave it a season-best four-game win streak.

There was a festive feeling in the air as the team debuted new Mardi Gras uniforms, featuring purple, green and gold in the opening days of Carnival season.

But just as the masks of comedy and tragedy associated with Mardi Gras symbolize joy and despair, so too did the mood inside the Smoothie King Center.

The joy of New Orleans’ recent basketball success was tempered by the despair that this might represent the high point of a season in which 33 games remained after Sunday.

For it was the Pelicans’ first game since All-Star forward DeMarcus Cousins ruptured his left Achilles tendon in the final seconds of the win against the Rockets. He will have surgery this week and his season — if not his career in New Orleans — is over. His contract will expire this summer, well before his rehabilitation is expected to be complete.

The Pelicans’ future rests largely with whether Cousins can return to form and whether he’ll do it in New Orleans. But for now the concern is whether the team can make the playoffs without him.

They began play Sunday in sixth place in the Western Conference, just three games behind Minnesota for fourth place, the last spot to earn home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. But they were also three games ahead of the ninth-place Clippers in the battle for the eighth and final playoff spot.

A berth in the post-season was becoming more of a likelihood and home-court advantage in the first round was becoming a realistic possibility. Then Cousins went down.

“We were just figuring everything out, that’s the tough part,” said fellow All-Star Anthony Davis.

Cousins’ absence will make things harder on Davis as opponents can devote more attention to defending him without Cousins there to make them pay for it. That means players with relatively small roles will have to succeed in bigger roles as the Pelicans try to mitigate the loss of Cousins.

“There’s not one guy who’s going to make up for the loss,” Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry said.

Gentry can’t replace Cousins with another 6-foot-11, 300-pound guy who can shoot 3-pointers and put the ball on the floor and get to the basket. Cousins had triple-doubles in two of his last three games, including a 44-point, 23-rebound, 10-assist masterpiece in a double-overtime win against Chicago.

With Davis and Cousins, New Orleans had a unique tandem of big men, but they were already small around them — starting a trio of guards in Rajon Rondo, Jrue Holiday and E’Twaun Moore. Dante Cunningman, a shooting guard/small forward who was replaced in the starting lineup by Moore earlier in the season, started in Cousins’ place Sunday.

In the first half the Pelicans got exactly the kind of group effort they need in their post-Cousins stretch run as all four starters scored at least four points and the team had 10 assists on 14 baskets, taking a 34-26 lead after one quarter.

New Orleans led by as many as 21 points in the second quarter and held a 62-51 halftime edge even though Davis had just six points.

But the second half exposed the weaknesses caused or exacerbated by Cousins’ absence as the Clippers roared back for a 112-103 victory.

The key perimeters players — Holiday, Moore, Cunningham, Rondo, Darius Miller and Ian Clark — were unable to provide enough perimeter scoring to balance Davis. Those six shot a combined 5 of 26, including 0 for 14 on 3-pointers, and scored a total of 14 points as all but Moore and Holiday were scoreless.

Cousins’ absence made it easier for the Clippers to either drive to the basket or penetrate and kick back for open 3-pointers, and they scored 61 second-half points.

Gentry didn’t use Omer Asik or Cheick Diallo, the only bench players big enough and healthy enough to provide an inside presence.

Perhaps at some point after the upcoming All-Star break, the Pelicans will see Solomon Hill and Tony Allen return from injury, which would help.

But in the meantime the transition to life without Cousins will be a difficult process that continues with a home game against Sacramento on Tuesday night.

What Gentry said before Sunday’s game was still true after it, but New Orleans was a little closer to ninth place and a little farther from fourth.

“We’re not dead,” Gentry had said. “We just lost a good player.”

Make that a really good and a really important player.