New Orleans has won six of eight and is only three games out of the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference. In Los Angeles, Pau Gasol had 21 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists to lead the Bulls to an easy road win over the Lakers.
The Pelicans are back from the dead
Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY SportsYet, here the Pelicans are, just three games back of the Western Conference’s No. 8 seed, winners of six of their last eight games. To call this surprising would be understating just how impressive the Pelicans have been, suddenly coming together in a cohesive bundle that looked unobtainable during those opening weeks of this year.
This was a win the Pelicans had to have, and Anderson admitted the team had called it a “must-win” in his televised postgame interview afterwards. New Orleans knows how steep their climb back into relevance is, and three games out of the No. 8 seed is still a long distance to close. The Western Conference’s middle class parity has helped New Orleans recover lost ground, but now that there’s five teams within three games of the final playoff spot, it’s much harder to consistently gain ground except by beating teams within this eighth seed cluster as often as possible.
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