25th January - New Orleans Pelicans vs Minnesota Timberwolves 26-22

right back to it ✌️

🕖: 7:00pm CT
📺: Bally Sports NO
📻: @995WRNO#Pelicans | @SmoothieKing pic.twitter.com/5gxDFWK2QI

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) January 25, 2023

There's no way around it. The Pelicans have been woeful for a few weeks now. Basically since 2023 began, with a little wiggle room around the dates. Obviously the biggest reason for that is the combined absence of Zion and Ingram. Other factors include a rough schedule with lots of road games against good teams, and also some missed games from guys like Herb and Naji.


This part of the season is coming to an end. Our latest Zion update is that he's recovering and will be re-evaluated in about 2 weeks, which is longer than we'd like but at least the recovery is happened *at least as far as we've been told*. We're also getting a slightly easier schedule for the rest of the year.

And the obvious factor for tonight:

After missing two months due to a big toe injury, New Orleans Pelicans star Brandon Ingram will return tonight vs. Timberwolves barring any setback in pregame, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) January 25, 2023

Ingram has not played since November 25th. He has missed the last 29 games. Nobody should be surprised if there's a bit of rust. But the reality is that before going out for injury, Ingram was averaging 21/5/5 this year on 47/47/87 splits, posting the second highest BPM among major minutes getters on the team, and was a top 40 player by EPM.

That's a huge player to get back. Glad to see him return, barring any setback. We need him right now.