The five most successful NBA road teams from Christmastime through the season’s mid-March stoppage include the league’s defending champions; the club with the Western Conference’s best overall record; as well as two squads that could face each other in the 4-5 matchup of the West playoffs. Oddly, the fifth member of that quintet unceremoniously opened 2019-20 by losing 12 of its first 15 road contests, including a Dec. 20 defeat to a foe that isn’t even among the 22 invitees for the resumption of basketball.
There are countless numerical ways to demonstrate New Orleans’ remarkable in-season turnaround, but the shift in the Pelicans’ road results may be the most revealing. Through a Dec. 20 loss at Golden State, they were tied for the NBA’s second-worst road record at 3-12, but from Dec. 21 forward, they flipped that by going 12-5 in away games, the fifth-best mark behind only Oklahoma City (16-2), the Lakers (12-3), Toronto (15-4) and Utah (14-5).
That effectiveness away from the Crescent City would seemingly bode well for the Pelicans’ trip to Orlando next month, where all but the Orlando Magic will be competing in relatively unfamiliar surroundings. Referring to his team’s goal of building on its in-season metamorphosis, fifth-year head coach Alvin Gentry said on NBA TV, “We’re going to try to make our guys understand that we’re just picking up the season from where it left off. I thought we were playing really good basketball, and for us, we just want an opportunity to make the playoffs. We’ve been given that, so we’re going to pick up from where we left off and try to ramp it up (to prepare for late July games).”
Perhaps it’s related to the Pelicans having so many brand-new players in ’19-20 – who therefore are not yet ultra-familiar with the rims and shooting background of the Smoothie King Center – but the squad overall has been better outside of Louisiana this season. Overall, New Orleans is 15-17 on the road, but just 13-19 at home, with several individuals displaying far more accuracy in away games.
For example, during his first All-Star campaign, high-scoring forward Brandon Ingram has been an average three-point shooter at home (35 percent), but on the road, he connects on an elite 43 percent of his attempts, ranking 10th among all players (minimum 90 trey attempts). Nicolo Melli has shot just 30 percent from beyond the arc in the Smoothie King Center (26 of 86), but is at 42 percent in away games (39 of 94), ranking 16th. Between Ingram, Melli and JJ Redick (sixth in road three-point percentage at 44), New Orleans has three of the league’s 16 most accurate three-point marksmen on the road.
Although the three-point shooting gap is not as pronounced for them, Josh Hart (31 percent at home, 37 percent on road) and E’Twaun Moore (36 percent at home, 39 percent on road) are other examples of Pelicans who’ve fared better this season outside the Big Easy. Add it all up, and New Orleans is the NBA’s third-best road three-point shooting squad, but 12th in home games.
Strangely, even for the two longest-tenured Pelicans, the relative familiarity of the Smoothie King Center has not been a positive factor at the foul line in ’19-20. A seven-year member of New Orleans, Jrue Holiday has one of the most drastic home-road splits in the league on free throws, shooting 80 percent on the road, but an inexplicable 61 percent at home. In his fourth season with the Pelicans, Moore shoots 72 percent in away games, but just 64 percent in Louisiana (granted, both stats feature a small sample size).
With 22 teams planning to head to Central Florida next month, New Orleans won’t play another home game in ’19-20, but from a statistical standpoint, maybe that’s a good thing. At least until a mostly new-to-the-Crescent City roster gets a few more games under its belt. Maybe then, the Pelicans will be able to fully reap the benefits of a genuine Smoothie King Center homecourt advantage.
