The New Orleans Pelicans have made strides to make a late and final playoff push, having won five of the last seven games. The most impressive of the wins, was Wednesday night's against the Dallas Mavericks, given that Anthony Davis, DeMarcus Cousins, and Jrue Holiday combined to score 77 points, providing a balanced attack to edge out the Mavs 121-118.
“I wish we had it earlier (in the season),” Holiday told William Guillory of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “Obviously earlier in the season, we really relied on the defense. Scoring just kind of comes easy now.”
The pairing of Davis and Cousins had its fair share of difficulties after the All-Star break with either of the two having great scoring outputs, but seldom both at the same time — which was ideal to torment opposing defenses.
“It's a lot easier now than it was the first couple games I was here,” said Cousins. “It's coming along, we're progressing. I think we're getting better each game–I think that's pretty obvious…I'm really looking forward to training camp (next year), I think we can build something special.”
Davis and Cousins had 30 and 29 points respectively, combining for 29 rebounds, an efficient 20-of-40 from the field and a swift 18-of-20 from the line. “Fire and Ice” have most importantly figured out how to play to each other's strengths and get themselves in easier positions to score, making the offense more organic, rather than a “feed the big fella” conventional style of attack.
“They for sure have a groove,” Holiday said of Davis and Cousins. “They pass to each other, it's kind of like they've done it before. I think it's a lot easier (for me) where you see one person diving, if you come off the screen with one person diving and one person popping, I'm definitely figuring that out–just making it easy.”
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