Magic at Pelicans
The New Orleans Pelicans did not do as well as they wanted on their five-game road trip and come home with star power forward Anthony Davis banged up. The Pelicans hope to have their star back in the lineup when they host the Orlando Magic in the opener of a six-game homestand on Wednesday.
Davis, who missed one game on the 2-3 trip with a left hip injury, took a hard fall in the third quarter of Monday's 98-95 setback at Indiana and suffered right hip and left thumb injuries. "We felt like we were in a groove and going pretty good there. It doesn’t help obviously with AD going down," New Orleans coach Alvin Gentry told reporters of Davis, who had X-rays come back negative and is day-to-day. "I thought we were starting to click and do a lot of things offensively. Him going down took some of that away." The Magic are another team trying to find some consistency and make a move up in the standings, but losses in eight of the last 10 games and a tough road trip are sapping any momentum. "We better stop it," Orlando center Nikola Vucevic told reporters of the slide. "It’s not even about winning and losing, it’s just about trying to play the right way right now. We’re not doing that at all."
TV: 8 p.m. ET, FSN Florida (Orlando), FSN New Orleans
ABOUT THE MAGIC (17-26): Orlando is playing the finale of a six-game road trip in New Orleans and dropped four of the first five, capped by a 125-112 setback at Denver on Monday in which they allowed the Nuggets to shoot 58.4 percent from the floor. The Magic are allowing an average of 111.5 points over the last 10 contests and surrendered at least 100 in 11 consecutive contests. "We’ve got to get a win," Orlando coach Frank Vogel told reporters. "We’re behind the eight ball with where we are in the standings. It doesn’t matter - home, road or whoever we’re playing, we’ve got to get a win."
ABOUT THE PELICANS (16-26): New Orleans is enduring the opposite problem while turning in strong defensive performances but struggling to come up with points down the stretch. Monday's loss marked the seventh time in nine games that the Pelicans held an opponent under 100 points, but they are just 4-5 in that span. "That’s the first time a team has shot more than 50 percent against us in a long time," Gentry told reporters after the Pacers shot 50.6 percent from the field on Monday. "But I still think we played well. This is a team that can make 120 points per game and we held them to (98)."
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Pelicans PF Donatas Motiejunas totaled six points on 2-of-13 shooting in the last four games after scoring 11 points in his team debut on Jan. 7.
2. Magic SG Evan Fournier (heel) sat out his second straight game on Monday and is questionable to play Wednesday.
3. Orlando earned an 89-82 home win over New Orleans on Nov. 16 in a game Davis missed with a thigh injury.