Pelicans are a better team for the stretch run despite losing home-stand

NEW ORLEANS – The New Orleans Pelicans had what looked like a bad home-stand just before the All-Star Break.

They won two games and lost four, failing to take advantage of their longest series of home games this season.

They lost to the sharp-shooting Dallas Mavericks 125-118 on Thursday night, dropping into a tie for 11th place with the San Antonio Spurs, two games behind the Portland Trail Blazers for the last play-in spot in the Western Conference as the break begins.

So the Pelicans (23-36) have some catching up to do after they return to action February 25 in Phoenix if they’re going to grab a play-in spot. They’ll have 23 games – 12 on the road and 11 at home.

But the home-stand itself and the post-break season can’t be evaluated exclusively by math.

There’s more that has to be taken into consideration regarding the immediate past and the remainder of the season.

First the home-stand featured mostly very good competition – the streaking Mavs, the East-leading Heat, the red-shot Raptors (whom the Pelicans beat by 30 on Monday night) and the really good Grizzlies (even without Ja Morant as they were Tuesday night).

The other two games were against the lowly Rockets (whom the Pelicans beat to start the stretch) and the sometimes-good, sometimes not-so-good Spurs, who were very good last Saturday.

So finishing 2-4 is not inconsistent with the overall performances this season of the Pelicans and the six opponents.

Of the 23 games remaining, 10 could reasonably be described as being against teams the Pelicans are likely to be in competition against for a spot on the post-season caboose (the Blazers, Spurs, Kings, Lakers and Clippers).

Five games feature other opponents that either are Eastern teams in the Pelicans’ neighborhood record-wise or teams that have worse records than them – (the Magic, Hornets, Rockets and Hawks).

The remaining eight games feature opponents that have clearly out-performed the Pelicans this season (the Suns, Warriors, Bulls, Jazz, Nuggets and Grizzlies).

Certainly, if the Pelicans are going to earn a play-in spot they will have to win a higher percentage of games down the stretch than they have won to this point.

And that gets us to the non-math element of the home-stand and the stretch run: the Pelicans should be a better team from here on out than they have been up to this point.

That’s because on the day after the victory over the Rockets they made the trade that brought them CJ McCollum (and Tony Snell and the injured Larry Nance Jr.) for Josh Hart, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Tomas Satoransky, Didi Louzada and some draft choices.

The Pelicans are a better team because of that trade – despite the value of Hart and Alexander-Walker, despite the 1-4 record they have since McCollum joined the lineup.

Even with a sluggish debut at least partly attributable to jet lag, McCollum has averaged 28.4 points, 5.4 assists, 6.0 rebounds and shot 51.4 percent from the floor and 42.1 percent on 3-pointers as a Pelican.

Coach Willie Green did the inevitable Thursday night when he moved McCollum from shooting guard to point guard.

When the trade was made, executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin said McCollum’s playmaking ability was a bigger factor in the Pelicans’ making the trade than analysis of the trade would have you believe.

After the loss to Memphis, Green said of McCollum: “He has a unique ability to be able to get to the basket, mix it up, outside in.”

In other words he’s a very effective playmaker as well as a very good scorer. Moving McCollum to point guard necessitated moving Devonte’ Graham from point guard to the bench (though he remains an important part of the rotation).

It also created an opportunity to re-insert Jaxson Hayes into the starting lineup at power forward, where he thrived and was a key part of the four-game winning streak that preceded McCollum’s arrival.

The moves produced a large and intriguing starting lineup with McCollum at the point, Jonas Valanciunas at center and Hayes at power forward with Brandon Ingram and rookie Herbert Jones at the wings.

The lineup’s debut was hardly a success against the Mavericks even after the slow-starting Pelicans outscored the visitors 37-20 in the fourth quarter.

Clearly the defensive continuity has a long way to go and Ingram (6-of-21 on field goals, 0 for 4 on 3-pointers) and Jones (foul trouble and just a brief offensive flurry during the inadequate fourth-quarter comeback) both struggled, though McCollum scored 38, Jonas Valanciunas had his usual double-double (16 points and 18 rebounds), Hayes had 18 points and six rebounds despite foul trouble, Graham had an efficient 12 points off the bench and Snell had his first double-figure scoring game (11 points) in three appearances since the trade.

The Pelicans’ record didn’t get better during a 2-4 home-stand.

But the team got better thanks to the trade and the modified lineup.