This is an entertaining match of NBA between New Orleans Pelicans and Oklahoma City Thunder, at Smoothie King Center, the home of Pelicans. This is an interesting match, after their previous meetings this season. Please, review our thoughts on this match, here below.

 

New Orleans Pelicans

Currently, Pels are in the 13th seed of the Western Conference standings (25-33). Their season is not going well, as their goal was to get to the playoffs. Anthony Davis (Pelicans) is an MVP candidate, but he does not get much playing time, as he was demanding for the trade. After the trade deadline, AD is still there and it is tragic for team chemistry, Pels give him limited minutes and don’t allow him to play 4th quarters. They also traded their main power forward Nikola Mirotic and we can say that Pelicans should fall apart. Out of their last 10 games, they won only 3. On the offensive end, New Orleans is actually very good. They are 4th in points per game (115.8ppg), 4th in assists per game (26.7apg), 5th in rebounds per game (47.0ppg). But these stats should go downwards by the end of the season. Leaders of this team are Anthony Davis (28.5ppg, 13.1rpg, 4.3apg, 2.6blkpg), Jrue Holiday (20.9ppg, 8.0apg, 5.1rpg), Julius Randle (19.9ppg, 9.1rpg). At home, Pelicans play pretty well (16-11).

 

Oklahoma City Thunder

Currently, Thunder is in the 3rd seed of the Western Conference standings (37-19). Oklahoma is on winning roll lately. They have won 9 of their last 10 games and are looking good. Paul George is playing on the MVP level. He scores almost 40ppg in February. Russel Westbrook is also hot as he broke NBA all-time record with 10 triple-doubles in consecutive games. OKC is a great rebounding team as they are 2nd best rebounding team with 47.9ppg. Oklahoma’s leader this season are Paul George (28.7ppg, 8.0rpg, 4.1apg, 2.3stlpg), Russell Westbrook (21.2ppg, 11.2rpg, 11.1apg), Dennis Schroder (15.7ppg, 3.4rpg, 4.1apg), Steven Adams (14.9ppg, 9.6rpg). On road, OKC is playing pretty good (17-12).

 

H2H

These teams have met each other 2 times. Both games were very close and now the series between Pelicans and Thunder are split. Last game was 3 weeks ago and Oklahoma came victorious 116-122. The leaders in this game for Oklahoma were: Jrue Holiday (22pts, 13ass, 9rebs), Darius Miller (21pts, 7rebs), Jahlil Okafor (18pts, 8rebs) (AD and Mirotic did not play). Oklahoma’s leaders: Russell Westbrook (23pts, 17rebs, 16ass), Paul George (23pts, 11rebs, 7ass), Steven Adams (20pts, 12rebs).