NBA: New Orleans Pelicans vs. LA Lakers Preview, Odds, Prediction

Things ain’t right in LA, and the Lakers are on the brink of collapsing. The purple and gold meet the New Orleans Pelicans, and this is the ultimate test for James and the guys. Either they win and preserve some respect, or lose, which will prove that they won’t be a playoff team this season. Let’s be straight here, if they can’t beat the Pelicans, what are they hoping for? With all due respect towards the franchise from New Orleans.

Preview

New Orleans Pelicans (24-36, +110) lost four of the past six, but the good news is that they won the first game following the All-Star break. We’ll see if they got some time to develop chemistry during the pause. Though, we need to say that CJ McCollum started pouring right away since his arrival to the Big Easy.

He was the Pels’ top scorer in the previous five events, surpassing 30 points in four of those events. The Pelicans’ previous game was in Phoenix where they beat the Suns, 117-102, using the fact that the league leaders played without Chris Paul. We need to say that NOP looked very good in this one.

They limited the Suns to only 37 rebounds while having 53 boards. McCollum dropped 32 points in 35 minutes with six boards, while Brandon Ingram had 28 buckets and seven assists, missing only one of 11 shots. Jonas Valanciunas had another monstrous double-double with 18 points and 17 boards.

LA Lakers (27-32, -120) have three wins in the past 11 matches, and if that isn’t the reason for an alarm in their locker room, then we don’t know what it is. Meanwhile, the Lakers are acting as if nothing happened, and they are relaxed and cool.

They lost to the Clippers 105-102 in return following the All-Star. This is the third time this year that purple and gold lose to their city rivals, who, by the way, played without both Kawhi and George and had several other players out.

The Lakers made only eight threes in 31 attempts, which is 25.8% of their shooting. LeBron had 21 points and 11 boards, while Russell Westbrook scored 18 points, 9-for-21 from the field. Dwight Howard was back in the starting lineup, replacing Anthony Davis with 14 points and 16 boards, seven on the offensive end. Melo was excellent off the bench with 18 points, while Talen Horton-Tucker scored 16.

Head to Head Games

The Pels and the Laker didn’t get the chance to meet this year until now. We saw three clashes between these two sides in the previous season, and the LAL won twice, with the Pels winning one game at home.

Prediction

As said before, the Lakers are in the hole, and we don’t consider them the title-contenders anymore. Yes, they have LBJ and the rest of the stars, but that isn’t working, and that’s the case. The limit for the total points here is 225, and our pick would be over, due to the Pelicans’ offensive mindset that neglects the defense. Therefore, we believe that this might be a very open and fast contest, which will produce a high number of points.

Pick: Over 225 points