NEW ORLEANS — The New Orleans Pelicans bounced back with three wins last week to keep their playoff hopes alive.
"It's a fun time right now, especially with the pressure on, for our fans and for our team," Brandon Ingram said after Saturday's win against the Clippers.
Saturday's win marked the Pelicans fourth straight win. They are now 37-37 and have risen to 8th in the West.
Brandon Ingram has led the way on offense, facilitating and scoring the ball. He had his first career triple-double last Thursday against the Charlotte Hornets.
"Everybody rallies around B.I. when he has that mentality. We are all encouraging him to continue to show people your one of the best players in the league," Pelicans head coach Willie Green said.
During the winning streak, Ingram is averaging 30 points, 5 rebounds, and 9.8 assists.
"I'm excited to get in this groove and do things when it matters the most," Ingram said.
Trey Murphy has also shined recently; he made 10 threes in their last contest and is second in the NBA this month with 52 made threes on 47.3% shooting.
"I just see his [Murphy] confidence keeps going up and up. I just want to be there for him when he's down and continue to push him when he's up. He's the best shooter on the team," Ingram said.
The 5th to 12th seeds are still jumbled together, with just 2.5 games separating the group. The Pelicans are just one game back of the sixth place. If the team wins the first two games of their road trip, they could move up to 6th Tuesday night.
On Tuesday night, the Pels kick off their trip in Portland against the Trail Blazers, who have dropped to 13th in the West and are leaning toward shutting down their star point guard Damian Lillard for the rest of the season, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic.
The Pelicans end their road trip with games against the Golden State Warriors and Denver Nuggets.
With 8 games left in the regular season, the Pels have a 47% chance of making the Playoffs, according to FiveThirtyEight. CBS Sports projects the Pelicans will miss the playoffs.
"It's easy to get up for these games now that they mean so much," Ingram said.
With another winning week, the Pels could put themselves in a position to clinch a spot in the Play-In Tournament early next week.
Here is how the play-in tournament works:
7th seed plays the 8th seed, and the 9th seed plays the 10th seed. The winner of the 7-8 game gets the 7th seed, while the loser plays the winner of the 9-10 game for the 8th seed.
INJURY REPORT:
They are still without All-Star Zion Williamson (hamstring) and Jose Alvarado (right tibial stress reaction). Williamson was cleared to return to some practice activities on March 22 and will be re-evaluated around April 6.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.