Pelicans continue free fall with loss to Magic

We already know the New Orleans Pelicans are not a good road team.

Now, the Pelicans are losing at home.

Now, it is safe to say they are simply not good enough as a team.

New Orleans dropped its fourth straight game, once again struggling mightily on the offensive end of the floor in a 101-93 loss to Orlando.

The Pelicans lost to a young team with a losing record at home as a favorite.

That tells you enough of the story.

The rest of the story is a team that is being exposed for its offensive inefficiency.

For much of the year, the Pelicans have been in the middle of the pack in the league in 3-point shooting percentage.

Now, they have fallen into the bottom tier, out of the top 20 in that department.

Against the Magic, New Orleans was awful from distance again, making just 6 of 27 (22%) from 3-point range.

Brandon Ingram was the only scoring threat, putting in 25 points and he had to work extremely hard for those points. Of course, Ingram, a deadly mid-range shooter, was just 2 of 7 from 3-point range. Ingram is 3 of 13 from 3-point range in his last two games.

CJ McCollum continues to struggle.

McCollum scored 18 points but was just 1 of 8 from 3-point range. In his last two games, McCollum is an awful 2 of 17 from 3-point range and the Pelicans cannot live with those numbers and clearly cannot win with them.

No one else was a scoring threat.

Herb Jones, clearly not a scorer, was third in scoring with 10 points.

In their last two games, the Pelicans are a dismal 14 of 65 (21.5%) from 3-point range.

Once again, the Pelicans were beaten on the boards, this time 44-38 while committing 17 turnovers.

In today’s NBA, when you hold an opponent to 101 points, you have to win.

The Pelicans simply cannot score.

In the four-game losing streak, the Pelicans are averaging just 102.7 points per game.

The NBA average in points per game this season is 114.2.

The lowest scoring team in the league is Miami, which averages 108.1 points per game.

At one point, this was a promising season and at one point, most all of us viewed the Pelicans as a good team with a real shot in the Western Conference when they were 23-12.

That is not who this team is.

Now, at 30-32, the Pelicans have slipped into a virtual tie with the Blazers for the 10th and final play-in spot.

The Pelicans head to Portland Wednesday to open a three-game road trip and will be underdogs in all three games, an indication of the free fall possibly continuing.

There is no return of Zion Williamson in sight. Perish the thought.

New Orleans is 7-19 in the New Year.

That is who they are.