The New Orleans Pelicans are currently on a three-game winning streak. Two of those wins are against playoff teams in the Denver Nuggets and Utah Jazz. Even in recent losses, the Pelicans look much better now than they did early in the season, and guard Jrue Holiday has noticed.

The Pelicans have struggled for much of the year, as evidenced by the drama surrounding star Anthony Davis, and their current 30-36 record. The recent play has impressed Holiday, however.

“We’ve been in most of our games and down the stretch we didn’t just complete the game,” Holiday said. “As of late we’ve been doing a really good job of executing and getting big wins.”

It’s hard to argue with Holiday here. The Pelicans have been playing much better lately. They’re closing out games, which is something they struggled mightily to do early in the season.

If a few of the heartbreakers where the Pelicans seemed to collapse at the end went a different way, this could be a very different season right now. New Orleans could be in a playoff spot and maybe there would be no Davis drama just yet.

Even more impressive is that they’re playing like this while giving a lot of younger guys heavy minutes.

The Pelicans aren’t out of the playoff race yet. It’s a long shot, but it’s not impossible. They’re 6.5 games back from the eighth seed and seven games back from the seventh seed, with 16 games left. It’s a hefty task, but could in theory be done.

With a number of impressive wins lately, the Pelicans are building up a little hope. The problem is, the schedule doesn’t get any easier anytime soon. In their next five games they play the Jazz again, as well as the Toronto Raptors, Portland Trail Blazers and Milwaukee Bucks.

This will be a good test to see just how far this team has come from the beginning of the season.