We Watched It So You Didn’t Have To

Anthony Davis Shines, but Montrezl Harrell Gets the MVP Chants

The Pelicans outlast the Clippers 121–116 in a tight Western playoff battle

The New Orleans Pelicans visited the Los Angeles Clippers Tuesday in a key battle between two teams in the Western Conference playoff battle royale. The Pelicans jumped out to an early lead but saw Montrezl Harrell and Lou Williams help the Clips battle back repeatedly from the bench. New Orleans escaped late with a key road victory to stretch their win streak to nine.

Anthony Davis left injured in the first half but played like an MVP the second half. Montrezl Harrell got actual MVP chants from the L.A. crowd and may have even deserved them for one night. Let’s take a look at two Western playoff contenders and draw some conclusions, with the usual caveats on one-game samples…

1. Anthony Davis is absurd

Were you expecting something else?

Everyone’s talking about Anthony Davis, and he’s the guy everyone will be talking about in this game, but that wasn’t the case at halftime. My notes for Brow at the half said “quiet half, not super involved.” He had 10 points, mostly in transition, wasn’t a big factor in the half-court offense, and wasn’t doing much on defense. Late in the second quarter, Davis took a DeAndre Jordan hip to the ribs, doubled over in pain, and went straight to the locker room with a rib bruise. Suffice to say this is not how I expected to lead this piece.

And then the third quarter happened.

Davis went supernova, and everything was on display. He hit a career-high four threes that quarter alone, and he poured in 19 points with an array of leaners, step-backs, pull-ups, and fades. The Clippers just had no answer, to the point that they even got BOBAN up to warm up at one point (with the crowd hilariously getting super excited) when they ran out of any other options. Davis added big defensive plays too, including three straight possessions with a steal or a block. It was the Full Brow Experience.

Davis had 31 points, nine boards, two steals, and three blocks… in the second half alone. Only Karl-Anthony Towns, Boogie Cousins, and LaMarcus Aldridge have even matched that line in an entire game this season.

Davis was particularly unstoppable in transition and in rare minutes at center. Jordan is the only Clipper with the size to match Davis, and he was often beat back in transition with Pelicans guards throwing the lob to Brow every time. L.A. had no answer. They also had no answer for a second-half stretch when New Orleans finally played Davis and Mirotic as the bigs and put Jordan in the pick-and-roll, stranding him in the lane while Davis hit open threes. Jordan had no way to get out on Davis, and if he tried, Brow beat him to the rim.

Even without Boogie, Davis still plays almost all his minutes at power forward. That’s frustrating in a game like this where he can play the Clippers’ best player off the court at center. Of course we also saw why he doesn’t like matching up with behemoths like Jordan when it looked like he’d miss the second half or more with that injury.

Davis finished the game with a tidy 41/13/2/2/3 line. That that has happened only 24 times since 1963 by 11 mostly Hall of Famers, four times by Davis himself. Ridiculous.

During this nine-game New Orleans winning streak, Davis is averaging 37.7 points, 14.6 rebounds, and 2.8 blocks. He’s scored 40+ in five of them.

He turns 25 on Sunday.

2. The weird Rondo-Holiday back court experiment is working

I was very critical of the Pelicans front office last summer. I thought the Jrue Holiday contract extension was a massive overpay, and I thought moving him off-ball made it even worse. I thought the Rondo signing made sense in approximately zero ways. But it’s working.

Rajon Rondo was spectacular in transition. The Pelicans run a LOT, and Rondo is the guy that makes the transition game work. He’s still a passing savant who sees the pass a half-step ahead of the defense, and he makes quick decisions that kill the defense in transition.

And Rondo can shoot! He hit three treys and shot confidently when open. He’s over 36% downtown, and he’s hit that mark in three straight seasons. That’s fine! It’s even kind of good! That’s over 1.1 points per possession, and it’s just as important that he’s shooting it confidently and in rhythm. Rondo is a disaster defensively now and not the guy he once was, but he adds a lot of confidence and swag to this attack.

And Jrue Holiday was awesome. Holiday scored in binges, including eight straight in a critical late first-half stretch when Davis went to the locker room. He also made a game-saving defensive play in the final minute, shutting down Lou Williams one-on-one and stripping him underneath the basket.

Playing Holiday off the ball has allowed him to expend more energy on defense, and he’s been one of the better guard defenders in the league. And it hasn’t taken away from his offense or his playmaking. Holiday had 19 points and 17 assists, ten of those dimes to Davis. His 19.4ppg is a career-high, and he’s making a career-best 56% twos, his first time over 50%, thanks to better looks on cuts and shots near the rim. The assist rate is down a bit but not lost, a fair trade for the increased offense elsewhere, and his season-high 17 assists last night showed he can still make plays when he needs to.

Rondo and Holiday combined for 32 points and 26 assists, and neither had a turnover until midway through the fourth quarter. That’s a heck of a way to run an offense. New Orleans had 39 assists on 46 makes.

Everyone is talking about Anthony Davis right now, and they should be, but let’s not call this a one-man team. Holiday is averaging 25 points, five boards, and nine dimes during this win streak with 52/43/81 shooting splits, and he’s playing good defense. He had a steal and two blocks against the Clippers and is averaging over two stocks a game.

The Rondo-Holiday pairing is working, and it’s energized this team. The Pelicans run and attack, and these two are the catalyst that start everything. Anthony Davis was the second-half stud, but Rondo and Holiday were why they jumped out to a huge lead and should’ve put this game away early.

3. Montrezl Harrell badly outplayed DeAndre Jordan, at least for one night

Harrell was incredible, almost single-handedly flipping the game and keeping the Clippers in it. When L.A. went down 21–7 early, it was Harrell’s energy and scoring off the bench that closed the gap. When the Clippers fell behind repeatedly, the Harrell-led bench unit brought them back. When they looked slow and lethargic, Harrell made them look like an NBA team again.

Harrell looks a lot like DeAndre Jordan out there with similar build and hair, and he looked like a slightly smaller but more athletic and in-prime DJ for one night. There must have been at least five times Harrell caught the ball in the post and made a confident move for a score where I thought to myself, “Whoa, I didn’t know DJ had that move!” He doesn’t, but Harrell does.

Harrell is more than just an energy guy. He’s confident in the post and has a nice touch around the rim, and he has a Euro step and some nifty moves. There’s some real offensive versatility there, and though Harrell is listed at only 6'8", he doesn’t play small. If anything, he plays physical through contact.

Harrell didn’t have much chance defensively, especially against Davis, but that’s not what he’s out there for. And even that turned into a positive — when Harrell was put into a pick and roll, rather than trying to get back to contest, he’d take off in transition and steal a few buckets that way.

By contrast, DeAndre Jordan looked thicker, older, and half a step slower. He didn’t move much on defense and was lost when he had to guard Davis or Mirotic, a troubling sign in a league with more and more of those types at center. Jordan had a massive alley-oop in the third quarter, but it feels like his athleticism is more power than finesse now. He had 20 rebounds, but that was helped by a game that featured the most combined field goal attempts in regulation this season, leaving him plenty of work. DJ still has no real post game and isn’t a good option with the ball in his hands. This felt like an ugly look at what a team would actually look like with DeAndre Jordan as their best player.

Harrell is three inches and 30 pounds smaller than DJ, and he’s a full foot smaller by wing span so he’ll never have a chance defensively. But for one night, he was the Clippers MVP and even got some faint MVP cheers from L.A. fans in the fourth quarter. He finished with 26 points and eight boards and was +16.

Jordan has a 2019 player option for $24.1 million. It’s really hard to see him getting anywhere close to that on the open market, especially this market. He’ll be 30 before the contract kicks in, and that athleticism is only going to keep fading. History is not kind to centers in their 30s, and Jordan suffered his first significant injury this year. Jordan may not get $24 million a year, but this might be his last chance at one more huge payday if he gets something like $55 million over three years. He’s a player with a limited specific value, one that is closely tied to an athleticism that’s already slipping.

I’m not sure Harrell will ever be an effective starting NBA center with his lack of defensive size, but I’m not sure you want to have that next Jordan contract either. His decision this summer will be very interesting.

Ten other parting shots…

1. The game should have never come down to the final seconds. It felt like a mismatch, and I wasn’t expecting that. New Orleans had a big lead several times, big enough I didn’t think the game would be worth finishing, but they kept taking their foot off the gas as the L.A. bench kept the game close. The Pels dominated, then blew it, then were saved by their stars late, but this didn’t even feel like a game the first two hours.
2. The Clippers starting lineup was ugly. Tobias Harris is pudgy Melo, scoring 27 on 24 shots, most of them in isolation. Austin Rivers does a little bit of everything without really doing anything. Milos Teodosic was lost against the Pels guards. Wes Johnson was an assist away from a six trillion as an NBA starter, which would still be only the second most embarrassing thing to happen to him in the last week. Looks like the rebuild is on.
3. The Pelicans’ pace really stands out. New Orleans took 103 shots, eighth most in a regulation game this season. They had a clear athleticism advantage and were always running, with Rondo pushing the pace. New Orleans has the #1 pace in the league since Boogie went out, and it felt that way. They’ve scored at least 118 points during their entire nine-game win streak, the first team to do so since the Run TMC Warriors in the 90s.
4. Neither of these teams scares me in a playoff matchup, but only one of them felt like a playoff team. Two weeks ago, my panel of NBA experts picked these two teams as the most likely to miss the Western playoffs. New Orleans is playing with chemistry and looks like a pesky, entertaining first-round out. The Clippers were missing Avery Bradley and Danilo Gallinari, but they looked slow, unathletic, and outgunned. It’s tough to see them hanging in this brutal playoff race.
5. Emeka Okafor is back. He looks healthy and good as ever on defense. The defensive technique and timing is still there, and he meets guys at their peak and just erases them. He had three blocks and was +22 in 21 minutes, and his per-minute numbers are great so far. All this for a guy that was out of the league for five years. Would you ever have guessed Emeka would outlast Jahlil in the battle of the Okafors? Okafor was the #2 pick in the 2004 draft, and he might be more valuable than #1 pick Dwight Howard now. New Orleans smartly added a $2.4 million non-guarantee next year, so he could stick around.
6. Lou Williams is so much fun. He got hot late and led the fourth quarter comeback, finishing with 27 points and 11 dimes. He was +27 and, along with Harrell, the only reason L.A. had a chance. Shame we couldn’t find a spot for him in the All-Star Game.
7. Nikola Mirotic has a hilariously quick trigger for this team. He scored 13 on 4-for-12 shooting, but it felt like 20 or 25 shots. Dude gets the ball and it’s going up in a second or less just about every single time. The first time I remember even seeing him pass was the fourth quarter. He has the green light to end all green lights.
8. Sindarius Thornwell is a fun watch. He was super into it on defense, fighting around screens and chasing little old Ian Clark all over the court. He brought defensive energy where the Clippers lacked it otherwise.
9. E’Twaun Moore is playing with confidence — maybe a little too much of it. He badly overthrew a lob that wasn’t there and tried a ridiculous dribble behind his back in traffic that failed badly. Moore has been a nice role player and finished with 10/9/5, but he should stick to 3-and-D.
10. The Clippers announced a new jersey partnership Thursday with a company called Bumble. I’m not sure if it’s funnier that the Clippers are partnering with a dating app or that their jerseys will prominently feature a word that literally means “to bungle or blunder awkwardly” or “to do something clumsily or botch.” You can’t make this stuff up.

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