Few teams suffered as of an on-court setback due to the pandemic than the New Orleans Pelicans. With one of the easiest schedules in the league paired with momentum on their side and out of favor of Portland and Memphis, the Pelicans looked prime to be the main contenders for the eighth seed in the playoffs.
The league’s temporary shutdown sapped all that momentum away and spit out a Pelicans side at the end of the summer that hardly resembled its spring predecessor. The end result was head coach Alvin Gentry losing his job after the team returned from the bubble.
Gentry talked about the team’s play on either side of the lockdown during his appearance on ESPN’s First Take last week.
“I thought we were playing really good basketball before the pandemic…Up until that point, we had the toughest schedule in the league and our last 18 games were going to be the easiest schedule in the NBA. So, obviously you still have to play and win those games but we liked our situation from the standpoint that we felt like we were playing good basketball and we were going to have an opportunity of making a run at the playoffs, regardless of what.
“We did not play well in the bubble and, obviously, somebody has to answer for that and it’s usually the coach. That’s not a surprise to me. As I said, you sit down and you talk, I had a discussion and we moved on from each other and that’s fine.”
The difference in an 18-game schedule that was the easiest in the league versus the eight-game schedule they were given in the bubble that was also easiest is the wiggle room available. In the bubble, the Pelicans had a minimal margin for error.
On top of that, the obvious case of losing momentum after stopping play for three months comes into play, too. The Trail Blazers, for example, were able to regroup, bring players back from injury and eventually make the playoffs while the Pelicans lost all their momentum and floundered.
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