By Michael Kinney
With their win Friday night in the play-in game against Sacramento, the shorthanded New Orleans Pelicans (49-33) secured an official spot in the 2024 NBA playoffs. Their prize is a trip to Oklahoma City to face the top seed in the West, the Oklahoma City Thunder (57-25).
“We deserve it,” Pelicans forward Larry Nance Jr. said. “That’s how we felt coming into this game, and that’s how we felt going into the last game. You don’t win 49 games by accident; that doesn’t happen. You don’t just slip and do that in a historic conference. We’re a really good team, and we deserve to be here. We showed that tonight, and we’re proud to be going to Oklahoma.”
One of the players the Pelicans will have to deal with is Lu Dort. The 6-4 brawny guard tends to get overshadowed by the on-court brilliance of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the athleticism and energy of Jalen Williams and the cool, competitive fire of rookie Chet Holmgren.
But in an age where defense doesn’t get the same attention as it once did, Dort is often considered as close to a stopper as you can get in 2024.
Yet, Dort has also shown in his career, that he is not afraid of the big moment. In Game 7 of their 2020 series against Houston, the undrafted rookie posted 30 points and nearly upset the favored Rockets.
“Letting the game come to me, those two games that you mentioned, the ball just found me and I was ready to make a play,” Dort said. “So I’ll always be ready for that if the ball just finds me. But at the end of the day, I’m going to just go out there and compete.”
Dort is also an example to the young players in the league who weren’t drafted high or came into the NBA with much fanfare. He had to build his name and reputation first in the G-League before he found a spot in the Thunder rotation.
So it should not have been a surprise that even though the Thunder have been focused on making a championship run in the NBA playoffs, Dort and his teammates were also locked in on this year’s Oklahoma City Blue when they won the G-League Championship.
“It was great. I was real happy. I was watching the whole game,” Dort said. “It’s not easy playing in the G League and the Blue. So all the traveling and the stuff they went through just to get the championship. So they came in yesterday after practice, we got to hang with them a little bit, talk about how it was and to win the championship. We were just so happy.”
However, the Blue could also be an example for Thunder as they prepare to kickstart their playoff run. While many analysts have congratulated the team on earning the top seed in the West, they haven’t been looked at as a serious title contender due to their age.
The stat that Oklahoma City is the youngest team in the playoffs has been thrown around so much, that I should be stitched on the back of the Thunder jerseys.
But the 25-year-old Dort continues to look at the true meaning of the accomplishment for him and the team.
“It just shows the improvement and then how we got better from a couple of years ago,” Dort said. “We’ve been the youngest team league for a long time now and it just shows that we really stick together and we worked to get to this point now. So I mean I don’t think age matters in that. Let your game talk and we’ve been doing that all season.”
According to Dort, who is just one of two players on the team to have played in a playoff game, a quality that is more important than experience is basketball IQ. So while Oklahoma may be young in years, he believes their knowledge of the game and how they all work together makes up for it in the postseason
“All the games come down to the wire, a couple of possessions and who’s got to be big to execute in those types of situations,” said Dort. “Especially when the crowds get involved in all that. So I would say that would be the main thing is the playoffs. It’s more physical and then it gets louder in every arena. So you got to be locked in all game.”
Unlike 2020, when the Thunder take the court Sunday in Game 1 against the Pelicans, they will be the team expected to not only win the game but win the series handily. New Orleans is once again expected to be without former No. 1 overall pick (2019) Zion Williamson, who missed Friday’s contest with a strained left hamstring.
If cleared to play, the earliest Williamson could see the court against the Thunder is Game 5.
But even without Williamson, the Pelicans have shown they still have an experienced and battled-tested crew. That includes Brandon Ingram who scored 24 points in the Pelicans’ win over the Kings.
“This was the goal at the beginning of the year,” Ingram said. “Throughout it, we had some injuries. We had different things happen. But we had another opportunity today, and we came in and everybody contributed.”
Oklahoma City doesn’t have the luxury of looking past any team, no matter how hobbled they are. But Dort doesn’t believe that will be a problem with this team, who are ready to make their own memories in front of the Thunder fans.
“I’m really excited,” Dort said. “I mean, honestly, a couple of days ago I was watching some clips from a couple years ago and Russ (Russell Westbrook) and KD (Kevin Durant) and how the crowd was going crazy and all the stuff that was going on outside the arena too. So I’m really excited.”
Game 1 tip-off is set for 8:30 p.m. local time at the Paycom Center.
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