Pelicans keep showing signs of consistency with stretch run ahead

NEW ORLEANS — It was the type of opponent and situation that has generally knocked the Pelicans off stride this season.

They had maxed out with three-game winning streaks on four different occasions before winning four straight a month ago.

They had just compiled a five-game winning streak — their longest in three years — making it easy to assume a loss was lurking.

And the opponent Monday night in the Smoothie King Center was the Phoenix Suns, the team with the worst record in the NBA. The Pelicans already had lost to the teams with the next five worst records — Atlanta, Dallas, Sacramento (twice), Orlando and Memphis (twice).

So losses to the worst in the NBA and the demise of modest winning streaks have been commonplace this season and in the early going Monday night it looked both were in the offing as the Suns raced to a 17-point lead in the second quarter.

But the Pelicans have been showing signs of evolving beyond the maddeningly inconsistent team that they were for the first half of the season.

After all, they were on the five-game winning streak even though the opposition wasn’t the most challenging. Only Miami and Milwaukee had winning records among the five most recent opponents.

They had won their last three before the All-Star break — against the Nets, Pistons and Lakers — and their first two after the break — overtime wins against the two most recent opponents with winning records. They needed to go into overtime in both of those wins, but they emerged with their fifth and sixth consecutive overtime wins, the longest such streak in the NBA at the moment.

When the Suns built that big second-quarter lead, it was worth remembering that the Bucks had built an 18-point second-half lead before succumbing to the Pelicans on Sunday afternoon in Milwaukee.

The Suns’ lead shrunk to seven at halftime and Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday turned the game around in the third quarter.

Not too long ago, third quarters were frequently disastrous for the Pelicans, but not anymore. On Sunday, Holiday scored 15 in the third quarter as the Pelicans outscored the Bucks, 38-19.

On Monday, Davis had 12 points and Holiday seven as the Pelicans outscored the Suns, 38-24, to take a 96-89 lead after three quarters.

In the fourth quarter the Suns got within two points on four separate occasions, but could never get closer. Davis finished with 53 points — the second-highest total in his remarkable six-year career — and 18 rebounds as the Pelicans prevailed, 125-116.

He made 21 of 26 free throws (both career-highs) as the Suns’ three tallest players — Dragan Bender, Marquese Chriss and Alex Len — all fouled out while trying to guard him.

Holiday said that when Davis hit 50 points he told Suns forward Josh Jackson, “He be killing y’all. All your bigs is on the bench.”

It was the fourth time during the winning streak that Davis has scored more than 40 points.

Holiday’s stats — 20 points and seven assists — were relatively modest compared to his recent standards. In the five previous wins in this streak he had averaged 26.4 points (compared to 19.1 for the season) and 8.6 assists (compared to 5.6 for the season).

The Pelicans improved to 34-26 and moved into a tie with Portland for fifth place in the Western Conference. They were 1 1/2 games behind fourth-place San Antonio and two games behind third-place Minnesota after their win streak became the franchise’s longest in seven years.

Though there’s much work to be done in order to secure one of the eight playoff spots in the West, middle-of-the-pack seeding and even the possibility of home-court advantage in the first round have suddenly crept into the conversation along with the fight to get into the playoffs.

We’ll know more by the time the Pelicans return to the Smoothie King Center to play Washington on March 9. Between now and then they will play consecutive road games against the Spurs, the Mavericks, the Clippers and the Kings.

After that they won’t face consecutive road games again until a three-game trip precedes the regular-season finale at home against the Spurs on April 11.

There are still 22 games left to be played by a team that is 15-7 in its last 22 games.

And it’s becoming more and more apparent that what happened in the first half of the season isn’t a very good predictor of what’s happening in the second half.