Wizards at Pelicans final score: Washington throttled by New Orleans in 127-102 loss

The Washington Wizards lost to the New Orleans Pelicans, 127-102 on Wednesday night:

This game got off to an ugly start and it didn’t get much better. The Wizards have seemingly hit a slump and this game was perhaps the worst evidence of such. The Wizards were down by as many as 31 points and never led in the game. Not even once.

So what went wrong? Thirteen first-half turnovers certainly didn’t help. Allowing the Pelicans to shoot nearly 40 percent from behind the arch also did not help. Down by 22 at halftime, there really isn’t a lot positive you can take from this one.

The Wizards need to figure out a few things: they have struggled to defend against physical big men like Jonas Valanciunas, and they have too many droughts on the offensive end especially from behind the arch (only 22.6 percent tonight). If their defense isn’t playing lights out, it doesn’t appear that their offense is good enough to overcome issues on that end.

The Wizards will head to Oklahoma City on Friday to face the Thunder for the second game of this four-game road trip.

The Game in a Nutshell