Davis and Holiday combine for 78 points, Pelicans lose anyway

This is all you really need to know about the New Orleans Pelicans' increasingly desperate injury situation: On Wednesday night, their starting small forward was Orlando Johnson, who was signed to a 10-day contract about five hours before tipoff.

With Eric Gordon and Tyreke Evans both done for the season, and scads of role players ailing, much of the Pelicans' scoring burden has fallen on the shoulders of Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday. They bore it admirably Wednesday, lighting up the Charlotte Hornets for 78 combined points. Unfortunately, the rest of the team scored just 35 points on 36 percent shooting, the Pelicans' defense couldn't get any stops - a season-long trend - and the Hornets came away with a 122-113 victory.

The Hornets, simply put, had no answers for Davis. They tried multiple different defenders on him, all to fairly similar effect. He drilled jumpers over Marvin Williams, torched Cody Zeller off the dribble, and did both to Frank Kaminsky and Al Jefferson in the short stints each was permitted to try guarding him. Davis finished with 40 points on 14-of-26 shooting, to go along with 13 rebounds and five assists.

Holiday was no less lethal, though short of fighting harder through some screens, the Hornets could scarcely have done more to slow him down. With Holiday knocking down everything in sight, the pick-and-roll with him and Davis was nigh unstoppable. Holiday came off screens and hit pullup after pullup, often with a hand in his face.

When defenders overplayed the threat of his shot, or dropped back to divert Davis, Holiday scooted past them and finished at the rim. He ended up with a career-high 38 points, shooting 13-of-23 from the field and 5-of-9 from beyond the arc.

And still, the Pelicans lost. Which was a historically rare feat, given the duo's scoring output.

They lost because they were a catastrophe at the other end. They did a miserable job closing out on shooters, allowing the Hornets to hit 15 threes - equaling their third-highest total of the season. They applied zero pressure, forcing just five turnovers. They had nothing in the way of rim protection, ceding layups in the paint or resorting to fouling. They sent the Hornets to the free-throw line 38 times, and 110 of Charlotte's 122 points came either from beyond the arc, in the paint, or at the line.

The Pelicans have actually improved on the defensive end in 2016, allowing points at about a league-average rate since the calendar flipped. On Wednesday night, they looked very much like a team that's been stretched too thin, letting two tremendous offensive performances go to waste.