The New Orleans Pelicans acquired Dejounte Murray in the offseason to try and improve how they finish games.
They’ve lost Murray for four to six weeks because of a fractured hand suffered in the season opener, but they’ve already shown improvement in closing.
The Pelicans, who were 0-24 last season in games in which they trailed at the end of the third quarter, faced a nine-point deficit entering the fourth quarter Friday in Portland, but rallied to defeat the Trail Blazers 105-103. The teams will meet in a rematch on Sunday afternoon in Portland.
“That’s something that we’ve paid attention to and we’re going to continue to work at it,” New Orleans head coach Willie Green said of finishing games. “Dejounte is definitely going to help us when he gets back, but our guys understand in clutch situations, no turnovers, get quality looks, we’ve got to finish possessions defensively rebounding the ball and we did that.”
Brandon Ingram made a tie-breaking jumper with 4.9 seconds left and the lead held up as Herbert Jones and Zion Williamson both got a hand on Anfernee Simons’ layup attempt on the final possession.
Murray’s three go-ahead field goals in the final five seconds of the fourth quarter/overtime tied Steph Curry for the most in the league last season.
In his absence, second-year guard Jordan Hawkins came off the bench to lead the Pelicans with 24 points, 22 of which came in the second half, including 15 in the final quarter.
“He hit some big shots for us, timely shots when we didn’t have it going,” Green said. “Once he gets a shot going down, he can reel off four or five in a row.”
Hawkins’ sharp shooting helped New Orleans overcome a sluggish game offensively by Williamson, who missed the opener because of illness. He made just 4 of 15 shots, but still contributed 16 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists.
“It’s big for us to win a game like this where my offense was just terrible, especially when we trailed most of the game,” Williamson said. “When I can find other ways to be impactful on the game, I think that’s big for us in the long run.”
Though the Blazers let a game in which they led by as many as 16 points get away, they played much better than they did in a 140-104 loss to visiting Golden State on Wednesday.
“I thought we played well,” Portland coach Chauncey Billups said of Friday’s loss. “Obviously you wish you would have come away with a win, but definitely this is more who we are. We’re going to compete, we’re going to scrap. We didn’t come up with the win, but we played our butts off.”
Jerami Grant led the Blazers with 34 points, including his team’s first 10, and made a career-high eight 3-pointers.
“They kept giving me catch-and-shoot 3s that were open,” Grant said. “Once I saw a few of them go in, I was going to keep shooting them.
“We controlled the game most of the way, but let it slip away toward the end, so we’ve got to be a little bit more poised going down the stretch.”
