Brandon Ingram is a bucket getter, but teammates praise him for ‘team-first mentality’
DENVER — The NBA regular season is a marathon, not a sprint. An ugly fact about the league is that many players — and especially stars — conserve energy to make it through 82 games. For example: When an opponent has a free lane to the basket and a huge head start, a player will more often than not let his opponent score an easy two unencumbered.
Derrick Favors playing prominent role in Pelicans’ improved defense, rebounding
He is his team’s ninth-leading scorer, averaging 8.0 points per game, yet to hear New Orleans Pelicans players talk about Derrick Favors is to understand that the center’s contributions go far beyond the box score. Favors’ return to a significant minute allotment coincided neatly with a 3-1 road trip for New Orleans, which had gone just 2-12 in away games prior to that. The Pelicans actually are in the midst of one of their lowest-scoring stretches of the 2019-20 season, averaging only 105.8 points and committing 16.0 turnovers per game on the trip, but they still beat Minnesota, Portland and Denver.
