The New Orleans Pelicans visit the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday night with the calendar doing as much work as the matchup. Tipoff is set for 9 p.m. ET, and Los Angeles enters at 1-7, trying to stop a skid that has already turned the season into an early crisis.
That is why the search interest lands here now. The Clippers have lost seven straight and have been 1-4 against the spread over their last five games, while their numbers point to a team struggling on both ends, with a 23rd-place defensive efficiency of 113.0 and an offensive efficiency of 104.3 that ranks 27th. New Orleans, by contrast, arrives on a four-game winning streak and has covered in six of its last eight games overall.
Zion Williamson gives the Pelicans a clear place to start. He is averaging 20.6 points per game and has scored 20 or more in six of nine games this season, a steadiness that matters against a Clippers team that has been allowing games to drift into shootouts. Los Angeles has gone over the total in each of its last four games, and it has also averaged a league-high 20.1 giveaways, a pattern that fits the Pelicans' pressure-heavy approach.
New Orleans has forced 17.4 turnovers per game and is scoring 120.2 points per game, so the ingredients for a difficult night for the home team are already on the table. Dejounte Murray has added another layer with a 27.1 PRA average across six games, including 30-plus PRA in three of those six, while Rui Hachimura has averaged 6.5 rebounds per game and gone for seven or more in two straight. The Pelicans also sit 17th in the NBA with a 49.9% rebounding rate, which is enough to keep them from wasting extra possessions when they create them.
The awkward part for Los Angeles is that the setting does not rescue the form. Even at home, the Clippers still look like a depleted team that is hard to trust, and the matchup leans heavily toward the visitors because New Orleans has been the more complete side in every area that has decided its recent games. If the Clippers are going to halt the slide, they need a clean response immediately; otherwise, the seventh loss becomes eight.
