It doesn’t have quite the same lose-once-and-you’re-out urgency of the NCAA Tournament, but the New Orleans Pelicans are in the midst of their own “March madness,” with only a slightly larger margin for error than the college kids. With 11 games remaining, the Pelicans (30-41) are four games behind eighth-place Denver (34-37) in the Western Conference, leaving them with little wiggle room over the final three weeks of the regular season.
A make-or-break closing stretch to 2016-17 begins Friday, when New Orleans visits Houston, the start of a vital three-game trip that continues with a Sunday-Monday back-to-back at Denver and Utah, respectively.