New Orleans Pelicans: What we liked, loved and hated vs. Chicago Bulls

The New Orleans Pelicans played (and won) their second preseason game of the year and gave us plenty of takeaways from the action.

The New Orleans Pelicans played their second preseason game of the season on Wednesday night and just like their first preseason game against the Atlanta Hawks, came away with a win over the Chicago Bulls.

Preseason wins mean absolutely nothing when it is all said and done and there is a bad trend of taking these preseason wins too seriously. They don’t count.

However, there are still a lot of things that we can take away from these games, including this one. While it does nothing to give us a definitive example of what the Pelicans will be like this year, it does give us a sneak peek into what could be during the season.

We decided to break out three takeaways down into three different categories: one thing we liked about the team, one thing we loved and one thing we hated.

Liked: Nickeil Alexander-Walker’s performance

Nickeil Alexander-Walker was circled as a potential breakout rookie compared to where he was drafted and he proved why yet again with another strong showing in the preseason. After doing some really impressive things in the preseason opener, Alexander-Walker yet again shined in this one.

The young guard played 19 minutes off the bench and scored 13 points on 4-12 shooting to go along with seven assists and a steal.

And we also buried the lead. Alexander-Walker drained a deep three-point shot with a minute and a half left to play to tie the game before making the final two free throws of the game to give the Pelicans the victory.

Alexander-Walker is making a name for himself and with every great showing is making his case for more playing time once the regular season is underway.

Loved: Everything about Zion Williamson

Yeah, this Zion Williamson kid is pretty good.

Zion Williamson had himself a game on Wednesday night. After a pretty good showing in his first game, Zion pulled out all the stops in this one. Whether it was 360 dunks or alley-oops from Lonzo Ball, Williamson not only scored but made it look easy.

Zion scored 29 points in 27 minutes with four assists and four rebounds. Most notably, he made 12 of his 13 field goal attempts, although he could have been better at the free-throw line as he shot 5-8 there.

It will get tougher in the regular season, especially when the Pelicans play tougher teams. However, if Zion can stay this efficient more times than not, even if the total points are lower, then the Pelicans are going to win a lot of games this year.

Hated: The rebounding

The New Orleans Pelicans were really bad at rebounding the basketball in this game and it is why the Bulls were able to jump out to a 23-point lead at one point.

In terms of total rebounds, the two teams were close as the Pelicans finished the night with 45 rebounds opposed to the Bulls’ 47. That was not the problem, though.

The problem was that the Pelicans allowed far too many offensive rebounds in this game. The Bulls had 15 offensive rebounds in this game, which is just way too high of a number to be happy with if you are the Pelicans.

This extended plays for the Bulls and allowed them to shoot 16 more times than the Pelicans. If they were as efficient then they easily would have routed New Orleans in this game.

The Pelicans are lacking in size and having a game like this is partially worrisome for the regular season. However, at the end of the day, the Pelicans still got the W.