Pelicans continue to defy conventional wisdom by sweeping Blazers with style

"We've been very confident. We just played our basketball." @Threekola discusses the series sweep and looking forward. @PelicansNBA | #DoitBIGGER pic.twitter.com/GrUhoFf4ek

— FOXSports NewOrleans (@FOXSportsNOLA) April 22, 2018

NEW ORLEANS — Who could have predicted this?

Certainly not the 22 analysts at ESPN that picked the Portland Trail Blazers to beat the New Orleans Pelicans in their first round playoff series.

Then again, the Pelicans have defied conventional wisdom all season.

What happened at the Smoothie King Center Saturday afternoon was just the latest example.

By defeating the Blazers 131-123, the Pelicans completed the first postseason sweep in franchise history and advanced to the conference semifinals for the first time since 2008.

Both Anthony Davis (47 points) and Jrue Holiday (41) surpassed the Pelicans’ single-game playoff scoring record of 38 points set by David West during those ‘08 playoffs.

Davis and Holiday became the first set of teammates to score 40-plus points since LeBron James and Kyrie Irving did so for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2016 Finals.

The 131 points scored were also a team postseason record.

The Blazers were game and didn’t allow New Orleans to run them off the floor, even as the Pelicans led by 15 with less than one minute to play in the third quarter. Portland used a 24-12 run to pull within one, 112-111, with 5:08 to play.

Former New Orleans Hornets forward Al-Farouq Aminu and Portland center Jusuf Nurkic sparked the Blazers’ resurgence by scoring 15 points combined during that spurt.

Ultimately, Davis and Holiday were just too much for Portland, as they had been all series long. Over the final five minutes Davis scored 14 points with two rebounds and a block. Meanwhile, Holiday closed with six points, two assists. They combined to score 27 of the Pelicans’ final 28 points and 60 of the team’s 73 in the second half.

“I’ve played with a lot of great players and when I see these two guys every night and everything they do, I want to go back and watch film,” said Rajon Rondo, who averaged 11.3 points, 13.3 assists, and 7.5 rebounds in the series. “It’s amazing what they do. Before each game I go to these two and tell them to be great. They are and this game spoke for itself tonight. They’re great teammates and they’re great people off the court. They make the game easy for me.”

“I thought Jrue and AD stepped up big,” said Head Coach Alvin Gentry. “Those guys really kinda got loose tonight. [Portland] changed a couple of things that (were) very good and they made a couple of adjustments that (were) very good that kind of kept some of the double-teams off those guys, but I still thought, in the end, offensively, we were really, really good and we shot the ball extremely well. And I thought that when we had to make a couple of defensive plays, we did.”

The Pelicans did make just enough stops. After playing stifling defense in the first three games of the series, especially on guards Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, New Orleans finally allowed Portland to find a rhythm.

McCollum scored a team-high 38 points, leading five Blazers in double figures. Aminu added 27 and Nurkic finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds. Portland also shot nearly 53 percent from the floor. Yet it wasn’t enough to prevent Portland from suffering its 10th consecutive postseason defeat.

The Pelicans overcame deficits in points in the paint (60-66), second chance points (7-11), and fast break points (11-19) the way they’ve overcome just about every challenge this season; with grit and determination.

“It really has been an interesting year,” Gentry added. “We had DeMarcus (Cousins). We finally think we have it figured out how we can play those two guys and DeMarcus goes down and we really have to reboot and start all over again. I thought our guys struggled about three or four games, but then kind of realized that we still had enough talent, especially when we added Niko (Nikola Mirotić), that we had enough talent that we would reinvent ourselves and we would play a certain way and that was going to help us. That’s basically what we did and then when it came down to the last game of the season, obviously, we were in a position where we had to win every game and so we talked to the guys about that being our playoff. We had to treat that like the playoffs and I thought they responded well.”

No one in the NBA has responded quite like Davis. After basking in the thunderous cheers of more than 18,000 fans and earning his first playoff series win, his place in the firmament of the league’s superstars has never been more secure.

There will be no more questions about his ability to lead a team, or whether his incredible numbers could translate into wins. AD isn’t feeling pressure anymore, he’s enjoying himself.

“I’ll tell you, it was fun,” said Davis. “Not too many people get the opportunity to be in a situation like this, and have a guy like Jrue do the stuff that he does, so it is an unbelievable feeling. I know what this team can do under these circumstances, but a lot of people counted us out after the injury to DeMarcus, so this is amazing. But we have to get ready for the second round. The way that I played, the way Jrue played, the entire team for the entire series…we played great defensively and stayed in rhythm offensively. This is a great feeling for me.”

Holiday, whose season has quieted his critics and elevated his stature as an elite two-way player, is finally seeing the fruits of six seasons of challenges, both physical and personal. Perhaps, no one embodies the Pelicans’ rise more than he does. The vision that started when he was traded to New Orleans to be Davis’ running mate is finally starting to come into focus.

“This was definitely part of the plan. I guess I wouldn’t say sweeping the three seed was a detail, but knowing we would have DeMarcus, and we had always talked about Rondo coming in, yeah, that was part of the plan to make the playoffs. To be here now it is a good feeling. It is truly a blessing. Everything we have been through this season…injuries, trades…to be here now it feels pretty good.”

The road doesn’t end here. The Pelicans will likely face the defending champion Golden State Warriors in round two. It wouldn’t be a shock if once again all 22 experts at ESPN picked the Pelicans to lose.

They shouldn’t win the series, not based on history. But the 2017-18 New Orleans Pelicans have been all about rewriting history this season. Maybe there’s still some ink left in the pen.