New Orleans — The Pelicans kept it close down the stretch Saturday night, but ultimately lost to the Rockets 108-104. While Houston shot just 43.8% as a team, James Harden managed to finish with a game-high 41 points, including 7 threes and a 14-14 effort from the line. It was Harden’s 9th 40+ point performance of the season. Julius Randle led the Pelicans with 23 points and 11 rebounds, while Anthony Davis finished with 22 points and 11 rebounds.
One of the big discrepancies in the box score was 3-point shooting. The Rockets made 16 threes, while the Pelicans only made 9. Aside from that stat and deep shots just not falling Saturday, Pelicans Head Coach Alvin Gentry was pleased with his team’s performance. He said after the game that he’s confident things will fall into place and the wins will come once they get back to full strength.
“We’ve just got to continue on,” Gentry said. “Nobody’s going to make me believe that we’re not going to get it turned around. We’re going to get some guys back healthy. We’ll get guys back in the roles that they’re comfortable in. There’s still a lot of basketball left to play and I think we’re going to be OK.”
The Pelicans (16-21) have now lost 6 of their last 7 and 7 of their last 9 games.
“We can’t afford to keep losing and digging ourselves into a hole,” Davis said. “We’ve got to sprinkle some wins in there. We’ve got to winning 3 out of 4, 4 out of 5, stuff like that to get back in it. We’re not that far behind but if we keep losing, we’re going to dig ourselves into a big hole that we can’t get out of.”
Next-up for New Orleans is another home contest Monday night against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
