Wolves vs Pelicans

7:00pm CST

Bally Sports North

My goodness, these games are so much more fun to look forward to when the team is actually competitive, aren’t they?

Minnesota looks to keep the good vibes rolling against a messy New Orleans Pelicans squad led by Zion Williamson, which, if we’re going to focus on the positives, is really where we want to focus for New Orleans.

Williamson is averaging about 27/7/4 in his second season, but he’s only played 82 career games. In his first season’s worth of games, Williamson has averaged 25.5/6.9/3.2 on 61% shooting. This guy is just a force, and he will make life extremely difficult for the Wolves.

The other big name with the Pelicans is Brandon Ingram, who is supremely talented but suffers greatly from the lack of spacing in the Pelicans lineup. Oftentimes, Ingram is the only reliable shooter on the floor, which allows teams to load up on him and leads to Ingram settling for a lot of mid-range jumpers. Ingram is a really, really good player who could explode if New Orleans surrounded he and Williamson with better shooting.

For Minnesota, we really just want to see more of the same. The work that Karl-Anthony Towns, D’Angelo Russell, and Anthony Edwards have been doing is awesome. All we want is for them to continue to play well and be competitive.

I now New Orleans is favored tonight, but frankly I think it’s fair to expect the Wolves to win tonight. They don’t really have an answer for Williamson, but if they make a concerted effort to slow down Ingram and the rest of the Pelicans, they should be okay.

Projected Lineups

Timberwolves

Ricky Rubio

Anthony Edwards

Josh Okogie

Jaden McDaniels

Karl-Anthony Towns

Pelicans

Eric Bledsoe

Lonzo Ball

Brandon Ingram

Zion Williamson

Willy Hernangomez