Portland Trail Blazers at New Orleans Pelicans preview

The NBA schedule can be cruel, but it can also offer gifts to the Portland Trail Blazers. After suffering predictable results in an absurd home/away game against Oklahoma City and Phoenix, the Blazers are getting a favor from the schedulers.

The Blazers face an injury-weakened New Orleans Pelicans team, which will play for the second night in a row, albeit without travel. On Sunday evening, with only one regular starter on the field, the Pelicans lost 126-111 to an Atlanta Hawks team that was also weakened by injuries.

On Saturday, the Blazers fell to the Phoenix Suns 103-97. An encouraging first half for Portland was – stop me if you've heard this before – wiped out by a disastrous third quarter. Credit the Blazers for a furious comeback, but the damage done in Game 3 was simply too much to undo in Game 4.

Portland Trail Blazers (2-5) at New Orleans Pelicans (3-4) – Mon. Nov. 4 – 6:30 p.m. Pacific

How to watch via antenna or cable: Check out your options on the Rip City Television Network

How to watch via streaming: BlazerVision in Oregon and Washington; League Pass everywhere else

Trail Blazers injuries: Shaedon Sharpe, Matisse Thybulle (out), Robert Williams III (questionable!)

Injuries caused by pelicans: Trey Murphy III, Dejounte Murray, CJ McCollum, Herbert Jones (out), Jordan Hawkins, Zion Williamson (questionable)

Reader questions about Blazer's Edge

LeftCoaster25:

What are the chances that Zion stays healthy for most of the season? What is his track record in terms of availability? He doesn't seem to prioritize losing weight.

Majority? Perhaps. Eligible for an NBA award (minimum 65 games)? Pretty unlikely, even though he played 70 games last season.

Here are Williamson's games per season:
2019-20-24
2020-21 – 61
2021-22 – 0
2022-23 – 29
2023-24 – 70

That's an average of 36.8 games per season. Brutally.

I've given up worrying about a player's weight since I met Nikola Jokic. Unlike Williamson, Jokic has averaged an incredible 73.4 games over the same five seasons and is often considered overweight by NBA standards. Although Zion missed Sunday's Pelicans game and there's a risk he could miss the Blazers game, last season has to be at least somewhat encouraging. If he can somehow manage to play at least 65 games this season, it will go a long way toward helping him overcome his reputation as an injury-prone player.

What you should pay attention to

• Injuries. It seemed like every preview last season talked about how bad the Blazers' injury situation was compared to their opponent. While the Blazers will be without two or possibly three rotation players on Monday, the Pelicans could be missing as many as five players, mostly starters, and at least three of their significant injuries will linger for another two to four weeks. In a brutal Western Conference, the Pelicans must fight for their lives and get every victory possible. Williamson and Brandon Ingram held the fort against the Indiana Pacers on Friday, but without Williamson they couldn't stop the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday. Having already lost once to the flag-chasing Blazers, the Pelicans simply can't afford for something like that to happen again, injuries notwithstanding. As of this writing, there is no news on whether Zion will compete on Monday, but his availability could be a major factor.
• Three-point shooting. It's hard to underestimate how important three-point shooting is for most teams to win basketball games. In every game this season in which the Blazers had a worse shooting percentage from distance than their opponents, they lost. The Blazers won every game except one in which they scored better from deep (the only exception was against undefeated OKC). If you get the impression that Portland is a bad team overall, that's only somewhat true this season. In the 2023/24 season, the Blazers were last in the NBA. So far this season they are in a much more respectable 19th place, and that includes two terrible performances of 23.5% and 18.2%. The current squad shows no signs of being remotely one of the top five teams this season, but being at least somewhat competent in most cases keeps them in games and gives them the opportunity to win some To put games in the win column.

What others say

With the Pelicans putting together a string of poor performances leading up to Friday's win over Indiana, Andy Quach from Pelican Debrief criticized Jose Alvarado.

This offseason, New Orleans signed Jose Alvarado to a two-year, $9 million extension with a player option at the end. This deal was an immediate bargain for the Pelicans, as Alvarado has established himself as one of the most influential backup players in the entire league, capable of single-handedly deciding games with his energy and feisty defensive pursuits. It seemed like a given that he would be out in the second year of his extension and given a much larger long-term contract going forward.

Now that the team is three games under its belt, it looks like this player option was a mistake by the Pelicans and a smart inclusion for Alvarado's camp. As a back-end rotation player, it's obviously not entirely his fault that New Orleans dropped three straight stinkers, but he didn't help the situation either. He didn't play well in the Pelicans' victories either.

David Grubb from The Bird Writes gave some details on the Pelicans' newest addition, Jaylen Nowell.

Although Nowell is undersized, he is considered a very athletic combo guard with strong scoring ability in isolation situations. He is a solid defender and a good outside shooter, although he has converted fewer than 32 percent of his long-range shots in his career.

Nowell scored a career-high 30 points for the Timberwolves against the Utah Jazz during the 2023 season and has played nine 20-point games. In those contests, Nowell made 35 of 62 of his three-point shots (56.4%).

It's up to Zion and Ingram to weather the storm, according to Zion and Ingram William Guillory of the Athletic (Subscription required).

If the Pelicans have any hope of surviving the deluge of injuries that plagued this roster early in the season, Williamson and Ingram will have to pick up the remaining pieces and carry them as far as they can, just like they did in the fourth quarter on Friday night.

Good won't be good enough in the next few weeks. Williamson and Ingram will need to be consistently great to give this team a chance to compete in its current form. If that doesn't happen, New Orleans could fall into a hole that will be extremely difficult to recover from in a highly competitive Western Conference.