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Andrew LopezESPN
NEW ORLEANS – On Friday night, the New Orleans Pelicans played a quarter-final against the Phoenix Suns in a three-quarter.
The Pelicans had an 11-point lead in the fourth quarter, and their offense rumbled to 102 points in the first 36 minutes. But games last 48 minutes. And the last 12 were definitely the ones the Pelicans would soon want to forget.
The lead evaporates in four minutes. Then, not even four minutes later, the Suns were two figures higher. When the last horn sounded, the Suns walked off the track with a 132-114 victory with joy, while the Pelicans went dazed to their locker room and tried to figure out what had just happened.
According to research from the Elias Sports Bureau, the 18-point defeat was the largest in the NBA in the shooting era (since 1954-55) for a team that entered the fourth quarter with double-digits.
So what happened?
“I saw Chris Paul take control of the basketball game,” Pelicans forward Brandon Ingram said.
Paul finished with 15 points and 19 assists and was in the fourth quarter with plus 28 – and he did not even play ten minutes. The veteran point guard helped the Suns take control and never looked back.
“Man is orchestrating there. He knows what’s going on on the floor before it even happens,” said Suns guard Devin Booker. “With him, the game was never out of reach. The game was never over before the horn sounded. He guided us well by keeping the whole game calm.
“In that fourth quarter, it’s a work of art. The way he chose their defense and made for other plays and at the same time also made the score when he had to.”
Paul was apparently three steps ahead of what the Pelicans wanted to do in the fourth quarter. His falling three-pointer over Pelicans guard Lonzo Ball with 4:41 left feels like the dagger to put New Orleans away. He ran up the track while his teammates chased him, while Pelicans coach Stan Van Gundy had a lapse of time trying to save something in the final minutes.
Contrary to what social media is suggesting at the moment, however, Paul did not shout, “I do not own this place.”
“I said, ‘I know this place, I know this place,'” said Paul, who played the first six seasons of his career in New Orleans. “I know that. I know that. I’ve played some of the best years of my life here in New Orleans. ‘
While the Suns found a way to come out with the win, the Pelicans left behind to try and figure out how they let the game slip away.
“I was just in the game and I think we are not constantly being demoralized,” Ball said. “When we saw them hit 3’s back-to-back-to-back, we did not get any ball movement or good shots during the fourth quarter. It just got worse and worse.”
Aside from the three-point barrage that sent Phoenix the way from New Orleans, the Pelicans also got sloppy with basketball. After the Pelicans committed just seven times in the first three quarters, it coughed up six times in the first six minutes, leading to 12 Phoenix points.
This is an issue that has plagued New Orleans this season. With Friday’s loss, New Orleans fall 12-9 this season in games in which they had a double-digit lead. These are the most losses after leading the NBA this season with double figures, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
“The thing is, when chaos is going on, we have to figure out how to lie down,” Ingram said. “We have to be able to adapt during the game.
“Whatever the defense scheme, whatever we want to do on the offensive side to make our team the best team, that’s what we have to do. After these losses, it’s frustrating. We do not have much to say. The “Coaches don’t have much to say. You just watch the movie and try to be better tomorrow.”
Van Gundy said he does not think the issue is his team’s age.
“A lot of teams in this league have quarters like this,” Van Gundy said. “I will never throw out the young ticket there. We are a basketball team with a lot of talented people, and we did not do the job in the fourth quarter.”
He does call it a “disastrous quarter”. And it was. The minus-29-point difference was the largest for the Pelicans in any quarter in franchise history.
“They beat us with haymakers at the end, then it just snowed,” Van Gundy added.
Pelicans forward Zion Williamson said there was only one way to deal with a loss like this.
“The thing for us is really to learn from it,” the 20-year-old said. “Honestly, I think that’s the best thing we can do. Learn from it.”