Even the New Orleans Pelicans defeated Denver Nuggets for the second time this year, only they did it at Pepsi Center. The end result of this closing Christmas Day match was 112-100 for New Orleans.
Directed by an excellent Brandon Ingram, both the guests from the Big Easy was able to pull from the late part of the game and stun the hosts, that had been, incidentally, pretty bad in this one.
“We don’t have a matchup for Brandon Ingram. I have to do a much better job,” said Michael Malone after the game.
Monster game out of Brandon Ingram tonight 
31 PTS7 Threes (career-high)7 REBS pic.twitter.com/G3kzRufcB5
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) December 26, 2019
The prior Lakers’ forward dropped 31 points, putting the new franchise record for Christmas Day games. Aside from that, he had 7 boards and was 11 for 18 from the match, hitting fantastic 7 threes from 9 attempts, his career-high. Whenever Pelicans had to score, the ball moved to himand he’d routinely fix the circumstance.
A 13-2 run over the final five and a half minutes pumped outside the second-placed staff in the West. The Nuggets couldn’t defend long-distance shots very well, permitting six threes in 10 attempts in the last quarter only. Malone was more than unhappy with how his team played defense from tonight’s contest, and that he wasn’t restraining himself from expressing that.
“It’s a big concern for me personally since early in the year which was our calling card…how exactly can we find a means to keep the defense where it was still keeping the offense firing on all cylinders? … Our defense has just taken a step back. ”
Denver was bad on the glassallowing the Pelicans to outrebound them 52-41. Aside from Jokic, nobody needed more than 10 boards, which was. Additionally, it needs to be said that Denver’s percent in the minutes of the game was under any good standard. But despite that, the Nuggets were consistently near, yet without strength to flip the tables.
Nikola Jokic was the only one who’d show a few will for rival in the last 12 minutes, but also the Serbian fella couldn’t do very much by itself. He finished the night with 23 points, 10 boards, and 4 assists.