Five takeaways from the Lakers’ 126-99 win over the Pelicans

Eventually we will stop measuring the various happenings in this Lakers season by comparisons to the past two. That time is not now.

Here are five takeaways from the Lakers 126-99 win over the New Orleans Pelicans.

1.) Despite their 1-9 record, the Pelicans haven’t been the easiest out. They’ve played two overtime games and before Saturday night had never lost by 20 points or more. In fact, the only team that had beat the Pelicans by more than 10 points was San Antonio, which won 98-79. That Anthony Davis left the game for five minutes certainly was a big part of this. But the Lakers’ margin grew by 14 points even after Davis returned.

2.) Sixteen three-pointers isn’t unheard of for the Lakers in the past two seasons, but it’s rare. It’s happened only once in the past two years – on Feb. 24 of this year the Lakers made 17 free throws against the Memphis Grizzlies. Saturday night’s three-point barrage happened partly because the Lakers were shooting so well. They shot 55% overall and made 53% of their threes. It’s also a function of Lakers Coach Luke Walton’s emphasis on moving the ball until someone has a good shot.

3.) At 6-4 the Lakers’ winning percentage is better than it ever was during the past three seasons. They’ve also won their sixth game a full six weeks before they did it last season.

4.) Can this be a playoff team? It’s too early to say that given only 10 games have passed, and several of the league’s best teams still await on the schedule. Walton certainly doesn’t want his players thinking about that. “The playoffs either happen or they don’t, but they happen by how you do throughout the season,” he said. “Are you improving? Are you doing these things? Are you playing the right way? Tonight we had 36 assists. If that’s how we play then yeah, maybe at the end of the year we have a chance to make the playoffs. But if we start focusing on the playoffs and not on those little things, we won’t be close to making the playoffs at the end of the year.”

5.) The confidence the Lakers gained from closing against the Atlanta Hawks a few weeks ago had a very real effect on this team. “Atlanta’s a good team,” Nick Young said. “They were undefeated. We’d been in every game ‘til then. It was bound to happen for us. We just needed a little push toward the end and it got us over the hump.”

tania.ganguli@latimes.com

Follow Tania Ganguli on Twitter @taniaganguli