Davis leaves with injured hip as Pelicans get first win

Mired in their worst start in 11 years, the Pelicans try to avoid being swept in a home-and-home with the visiting Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday night.

Shortly after the Pelicans PR tweeted out an injury update that isn’t good.

All Gentry knows is that for the seventh game this season, New Orleans had to find a way to finish without a full roster.

Team officials said X-rays on the All-Star forward’s hip were negative, but they were holding him out as a precaution.

The same can be said for point guard Jrue Holiday, who finished with 10 points, 3 assists and 2 steals in only 15 minutes of work as he remains on a minutes restriction. “We did that. I mean you go down the line, guys really just played their hearts out”. C Omer Asik played for the first time in four games after missing the previous three with a calf strain.

The Pelicans forced turnovers on Dallas’ first three possessions. New Orleans led by as many as 25 points in the third quarter and 28 in the fourth. 34 combined points from Douglas and Ish Smith is a unicorn hands will probably never happen again, but remember, they kept and even extended the lead in the second half without Davis.

“I just know he had a few problems and I don’t know if it is a groin or hamstring, ” Gentry.

“We’re still trying to figure things out and get healthy, ” Williams said. “Guys have to step up, and we did that”.

Anderson took a leap forward. The Wake Forest product picked up several of his assists Tuesday by finding Ryan Anderson (25 points, 10/16 field goals) for an open shot and has set up Davis (17 points, 7 rebounds in only 19 minutes) often in recent games.

After squandering most of what had been a 14-point lead, the Pelicans closed the first half on a 21-14 run, including scoring 18 consecutive points that built the lead to 55-36.

Anderson added 11 rebounds, and he was hardly the only Pel pitching in with Davis sidelined. Eric Gordon, meanwhile, jump-started it all with New Orleans’ first five points on his way to 17 for the game. Late in the second quarter Davis drove on Mavericks young power forward Dwight Powell and was fouled. “But we have to do it. We can’t have those five-minute segments in there where we let teams back in or end up getting separation”. Always nice to see new wrinkles like that brought into play… and nothing is sweeter than a little revenge, right? Tuesday night, he recorded his first career double-double.