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Andrew LopezESPN
NEW ORLEANS – New Orleans Pelicans coach Stan Van Gundy invaded his team after a 135-5 loss at the Minnesota Timberwolves on Thursday night, calling his defensive performance “embarrassing”.
“Look, I understand that it is my fault and what we are promoting defensively is embarrassing, to be honest,” said Van Gundy. “We all have to take responsibility for that. A lot of it is me and a lot of it is our players, and they need to take over ownership a little bit. We didn’t compete tonight, and that is the end result.
“We don’t compete. We don’t help each other. We don’t play together on either end of the court. A really embarrassing night for us tonight.”
Pelicans looked like a team with a mission to make it to the playoff in the first eight minutes of the game – jumping to a 16-point lead in the first quarter. They were defeated by 125-79 in the final 40 minutes of the game.
According to ESPN Stats & Information research, the Timberwolves became only the second team in the past 25 seasons to win a game by at least 30 points after losing by at least 15 points, joining the Chicago Bulls, who won the then New Jersey Nets on December 23, 1996.
Minnesota also became the third team to win a game by at least 30 points after entering the competition with a winning percentage below .200 30 games in the season, according to data from the Elias Sports Bureau. The last team to achieve this was the Cleveland Cavaliers, in January 1971.
Van Gundy considered this the worst offensive game the Pelicans had played in recent times, but he blamed the defense – the penultimate place in the league in defensive classification – for the defeat.
“We didn’t kick the ball well and, to be honest, we are so badly defensive that we can’t have a bad offensive night,” said Van Gundy. “We can’t even have a mediocre night. If we have a bad offensive night, we will be crushed like we did tonight.”
Pelicans hit 43.0% of the field and hit 6 out of 32 in the 3 point range. They also did not help each other on the free-throw line, where they were 13 out of 24.
It was a bad night for Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns – 16 points, 7 rebounds, 7 out of 19 shots and 2 out of 10 in the 3 point range – but great performances by Anthony Edwards (27 points), Jaylen Nowell (28 points , 11 of 13 shots, 6 of 7 from the bottom) and Jaden McDaniels (20 points, 8 of 9 shots, 4 of 5 from the bottom) helped push them to victory.
It was the first victory for Timberwolves coach Chris Finch in six games since taking over his first NBA coaching role last month.
“[The Timberwolves] played well and was inspired to play. It looks like we don’t care, “said Van Gundy.” We have what we deserve. When I say us, again, I’m not putting everything on the players. I am also a big part of that, but I am not absolving them. We are all of us. “
Van Gundy said he did not know why his team did not have the fight and the energy it showed before the break, even in defeats. But he indicated that it all started on Wednesday, when the team returned from the All-Star break.
“We also had no energy yesterday in training,” said Van Gundy. “It was one of the worst practices I was a part of in my career. I don’t know. Sometimes the days off make you lazy. It obviously helped them and it didn’t help us. It was a bad, bad performance. We’ll see if we can play much better Tomorrow night. “
Pelican striker Brandon Ingram said the team was recovering a little after the break, but at 15-22, he knows that the Pelicans don’t have much time if they want to make it to the playoff.
“There are only 35 games left and we want to be in the playoffs, so we have [to have] the urgency to find out, “said Ingram.