It was about as bad as it could get for the New Orleans Pelicans Wednesday night in the Smoothie King Center.
There was no Zion Williamson, who played the night before for the first time since November, but sat out the second night of back-to-back games.
There was no Brandon Ingram, who hit a game-winning buzzer beater to beat these same Portland Trail Blazers in the second game of the season.
And there was no Trey Murphy, who missed his second straight game after spraining his ankle Sunday against the Washington Wizards.
None of those absences justify what was an embarrassing 119-100 loss to the Blazers in a game between two teams on and near the bottom rung of the Western Conference ladder.
The Pelicans (7-31) have the worst record in the West, while the Blazers (13-23) have the third worst.
The gap between the two teams seemed much wider Wednesday, especially in the first half when the Pelicans got off to yet another awful start.
They trailed 40-24 at the end of the first quarter.
In fact, the Blazers almost scored more points in the first quarter (40) than the Pelicans scored in the entire first half (42). The Pels trailed 75-42 at the break, drawing boos from the home crowd as they headed to the locker room.
The Pels shot 37.2 percent from the floor in the first half, making just 4 of 18 3-pointers. Portland shot a scorching 67.4 percent from the floor and made 11 of 21 3-pointers.
Portland’s Shaedon Sharpe, who missed the first three games against the Pelicans, scored all 21 of his points in the first half.
The Pelicans (7-31) used their 19th different starting lineup of the season and dropped three of their four games to the Blazers this season.
The starters Wednesday were CJ McCollum, Dejounte Murray, Herb Jones, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl and Yves Missi. Robinson-Earl replaced Williamson, one night after Williamson scored 22 points and grabbed five rebounds to go with his 4 assists, 3 steals and one blocked shot against the Timberwolves.
“As he gets more games under his belt, he’ll be able to play in some of these (back-to-back) games,” Green said. “But to start, we wanted to hold him out tonight.”
Williamson is expected to return for the Pelicans’ 3-game road trip (Friday vs. the 76ers, Sunday vs. the Celtics and Tuesday vs. the Bulls).
The Pelicans were hit with another injury. Jones injured his right shoulder in the third quarter and didn’t return.
CJ McCollum, one night after shooting 1 of 14 and finishing with just five points, scored 23 points and Dejounte Murray scored 20.
