The New Orleans Pelicans may be on their way to the top, as they recently saw the returns of CJ McCollum and Trey Murphy from injuries, but their 2023-24 season hasn't exactly been a cakewalk. They have a 12-10 record at the moment, and earlier in the season, they lost five consecutive games. A more panicky team may have lost its composure, but the Pelicans, due to the adversity they've been through over the past few seasons, are learning how to handle these kinds of bumps in the road.

In the aftermath of their 136-124 defeat at the hands of the Dallas Mavericks on November 12, McCollum and Larry Nance Jr. agreed that the Pelicans had to come up with a way to stop the bleeding. Nance then called for a players-only meeting to help get the entire team on the same page, gathering for about an hour to discuss what they can improve on, with the entire locker room being receptive to criticism from each other.

“There's no winning basketball games if you're not all swimming in the same direction. And for whatever reason, early on we felt a bit splintered, even when we were 4-1. It just felt a little that we could be better. And I thought we did a great job of addressing exactly what we needed to address and walking into the meeting with a clear direction and a path the meeting was supposed to take. And it took that,” Nance told Andrew Lopez of ESPN.

The Pelicans responded in a huge way after that; they blew out the Mavs by 21 in their next game in a contest that wasn't as close as the score indicates, and then they were able to defeat the Denver Nuggets, putting them in prime position to advance to the knockout stage of the NBA In-Season Tournament.

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Thunder Pelicans prediction

Dominik Zawartko ·

Reggie Miller saying "Shai scorchin' the Pels!" with Shai shooting over Herb Jones

Chris Dodson ·

Graphic: David Griffin and Trajan Langdon saying "We're waiting" while Brandon Ingram looks dejected (head down) in the background. Maybe add 0-2 to show Pelicans are down in the series.

Chris Dodson ·

Adversity is a good indicator for what a team is made of, and now, Zion Williamson and the Pelicans know that the entire team is invested in the team's success, which bodes well for the team's future.

“We just weren't on the same page. Now … we know what we want to do, we know how we're going to do it, and [if] we win, we win. But if we lose, it's easier to pinpoint where we messed up,” Williamson said.