NBA Matchups: December 2

NOP @ ATL | MIA @ BOS | BKN @ CHI | LAL @ MIN

New Orleans Pelicans (back end) at Atlanta Hawks

Team Totals: Pelicans 108.5, Hawks 119

Injury Report: Pelicans on a B2B, Bogdan Bogdanovic (P, hamstring), Trae Young (P, Achilles)

Pelicans projected starters: Dejounte Murray, C.J. McCollum, Javonte Green, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, Yves Missi

Hawks projected starters: Trae Young, Dyson Daniels, Zaccharie Risacher, Jalen Johnson, Clint Capela

Green quotes: Said they had much better effort on Friday and they had some chances to make it close, said he hopes that BI can play on the road trip but he didn’t have an update, said they hope they can get Herb back soon, said Missi is always giving everything he has and he’s been great at blocking shots.

Snyder quotes: Said they opted to switch more late and it worked, said Kobe really impacted the game defensively (had a big defensive play late), said Jalen Johnson getting dimes was because they were able to run on a B2B, said their international guys are really good at making other people better.

Stats and Notes: 

*The Pelicans could get Herb Jones back, but this team is still just a complete disaster. They’re 28th in defense and are bad basically everywhere, especially at the rim with the second-worst rim D in the league. They also are a terrible transition defense, which should be a huge advantage for the Hawks and their sixth-ranked transition offense. Plus. the Pelicans are likely really tired on a B2B to give them an even bigger edge there. For the Hawks on defense, they made a pretty decent scheme adjustment to limit some C&S attempts, but they were also extremely lucky in the last three games. I would still expect them to be a huge 3-point funnel, and they’re a defense that limits interior scoring with their paint-packing ways.

*Dejounte Murray’s role hasn’t been nearly as good as expected. In his last two games (before Sunday), he had just 13 drives per game, 9.0 potential assists, and 6.6 minutes of touch time. He’s also been horribly inefficient to start the year at a 27.8 eFG% on his 40 possessions, which ranks as the fourth worst in the league among the 344 players with 40 possessions. There’s just no way it can be this bad, and his role has to get better. His 1-on-1 matchup isn’t great as he’ll see a lot of Dyson Daniels, but I’d still expect Dejounte to get it going in a revenge game.

*C.J. McCollum’s minutes were all the way back up on Friday to 36, and now he gets an extremely strong matchup against a huge 3-point funnel in the Hawks. McCollum takes 4.9 C&S attempts per game in limited minutes, so he’s likely getting up seven-plus threes in this matchup. He still doesn’t have much of a role for handling, so he’s likely going to be scoring heavily in this spot. He could still score 30 again like he did on Friday.

*We’ll see if Trey Murphy suits up here. He has yet to play in a B2B, and it’s worth noting that the Pelicans called up Karlo Matkovic for this B2B (G League team played Saturday; they play today, too). If Trey does play, the matchup is awesome.

 *Yves Missi will have to deal with some size in Clint Capela and Onyeka Okongwu. The Hawks have been really good at taking away the rim, so this isn’t a spot for Missi to put up scoring.

*Trae Young was clearly managed on Saturday with 31 minutes in a lackluster game against the Hornets. That’s something to note the next time he has a B2B, but I would expect him to get back to the 35-37 range in a close game. Young still has absurd passing stats at 25.5 potential assists in his last seven games and nobody is close (Jalen Brunson 16.7, Cade Cunningham 17.7 in three games). The concern on Trae is that he’s still not driving nearly as much at 16.1 per game, and he’s scoring just 7.0 points on those. It feels like he doesn’t have a chance to truly put up a big scoring night these days. That said, this matchup is awesome for scoring and dimes, so he could definitely go for a 30/15 kind of game here.

*Jalen Johnson should absolutely smash here. The sample size keeps getting bigger, and he’s still fourth in the NBA in touches per game as the 12th-highest MPG guy. The Pelicans have no defenders with size on this team, and they bleed all of Jalen’s jams — spot-up, rim, and transition. He’s got a shot at 30 points in this spot.

*We are still tilting from the loss on De’Andre Hunter under 20.5 P+R, as he scored nine points in the final 1:39 on Saturday. That aside, Hunter is playing extremely well as a top-10-percentile halfcourt offensive player, and he’s upped his transition frequency to 21.7% this season (16.7% last year). Even though he was limited on Saturday, it’s very encouraging that he didn’t even get tagged for that game. Hunter is viable on this small slate.

*Dyson Daniels gets a revenge game, and he should be more motivated than Dejounte as the Pelicans really sold low on him. The Great Barrier Thief should have an opportunity for steals with the Pelicans allowing the 10th-most steals, and he’s also a transition guy with 26.0% of his possessions coming in transition. He could pile up some stats here.

*The centers are in a big spot. The Pelicans are laughably bad around the basket, and I would expect Clint Capela and Onyeka Okongwu to really get it going inside. I like the matchup a little more for OO, but Capela could also get it going. Capela’s defense is starting to make a bigger impact, and he should really punish Missi early.

Great matchups: Jalen Johnson, Trae Young, C.J. McCollum, Clint Capela

Good matchups: Dejounte Murray, Onyeka Okongwu, De’Andre Hunter

Bad matchups: Yves Missi

Miami Heat (back end) at Boston Celtics (back end)