The Pelicans finally knocked the goose egg off their win-loss record with a blowout win over Denver on Thursday evening, 122-107. A host of former Duke Blue Devils stood on out the with Jahlil Okafor, Brandon Ingram and Frank Jackson leading the team in scoring, respectively.
The Good: Jahlil Okafor
As mentioned, Jahlil Okafor led New Orleans in scoring on the evening, but that is only the tip of the iceberg on his impressive night. Facing one of the preseason MVP candidates in Nikola Jokic, Okafor finished with 26 points on 8-of-13 shooting from the field and 10-of-13 at the line, both of those latter marks serving as career-highs.
Okafor also pulled down five boards against Jokic but limited the Nugget big man to only six boards. Overall, Okafor dominated the battle between the bigs as Jokic finished with 13 points and six assists.
After coming into the season as a bit of an afterthought, a strong preseason and start to the regular season has put Okafor into the conversation when discussing the Pelicans’ young core.
Honorable Mentions: Frank Jackson, Winning the rebounding battle, Three-point shooting
The Bad: The Warriors loss
A bit of an oddball choice but there were hardly any negatives on the night. Instead, Thursday showed that the performance against Golden State was an outlier. While it doesn’t make that result any less frustrating for Pelican fans, it is the lone game New Orleans hasn’t been competitive despite also being the worst team they have played so far this season.
Those types of games will come and it came at a particularly frustrating time for the Pelicans but seeing the team bounce back in the way they did on Thursday was a big positive.
Honorable Mentions: Nickeil Alexander-Walker’s shooting, Kenrich Williams’ minutes, Jrue Holiday’s seemingly lingering injury
The Ball: Typical Lonzo performance
Statistically, nothing jumped out for Ball on Thursday evening. Even with Holiday stepping back onto the court and Nicolo Melli entering the starting lineup for JJ Redick, Ball finished with nine points, eight assists, three rebounds, one block and one steal while finishing with a plus-minute of +17, second-highest on the team.
