Pelicans Keeping Their Head's Above Water in Weekly NBA Rankings

Throughout the season we'll be keeping an eye on not only the Pelicans but the Top 5 in the NBA on a weekly basis, you can check out the entire list here.

The New Orleans Pelicans struggled a bit last week going 1-2 with a loss to begin the week at the Boston Garden against the Celtics before beating Oklahoma City at home and losing to the Miami Heat in New Orleans.

Despite the 1-2 record last week, New Orleans rose in the weekly rankings and currently sit at 17th, three spots up from where they were last week as the team is currently 15-16 on the year.

Here is this week's Top 5:

Golden State Warriors (20-10)-Steady at 1
Denver Nuggets (20-9)-Up seven from 9
Toronto Raptors (23-9)-Down one from 2
Milwaukee Bucks (19-9)-Down one from 3
Boston Celtics (18-11)-Up one from 6

The Pelicans have had trouble with injuries and bench depth this entire season. Elfrid Payton has been out a bunch of time, Anthony Davis has missed a little time, and Nikola Mirotic has been out for a few games recently. In terms of bench scoring, only the Houston Rockets have done less and the Pels are averaging 29.6 bench points and that's even with Julius Randle establishing himself as a problem to guard off the bench (averaging 19 ppg and 9.5 rpg).

This week New Orleans has three games all on the road starting Wednesday when they travel to the team ranked third in this week's rankings, the Milwaukee Bucks. From there the team travels to Hollywood to face the Lakers on Wednesday and then to Sacramento to take on the Kings on Sunday.

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