One of the primary reasons that Jamahl Mosley was hired as head coach of the New Orleans Pelicans is his record of building top-flight defensive teams.

One of the players that Mosley inherited is Herb Jones, a former first-team All-Defensive player who can match up effectively against elite scorers of virtually any size, shape or skill set.

The Mosley era starts when the Pelicans face the Indiana Pacers at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Smoothie King Center, and it will be the first opportunity to see how the centerpiece fits in Mosley’s defense.

“He’s a great starting point,” Mosley said of Jones.

Jones’ rookie season was 2021-22, which was also Mosley’s first season as head coach of the Orlando Magic. Mosley learned to appreciate Jones as a defender, and Jones likewise learned to appreciate the way Mosley’s teams played defense whenever Orlando and New Orleans crossed paths.

“He's been a pest over the years of playing against him,” Mosley said of Jones. “I think he's just got to be the head of the snake in a lot of ways defensively — guarding teams’ best players, depending on who that is any given night with the matchup, but just being able to be as physical as he's been, as smart as he's been, playing in gaps, knowing how he gets steals, just being disruptive night in and night out.”

Jones has been a mainstay of the New Orleans defense throughout his first five seasons. To illustrate how much the Pelicans have leaned on his defense, consider the four-game stretch early last season when James Borrego took over as interim coach after Willie Green was fired.

In a span of six days, New Orleans faced the Lakers, the Warriors, the Thunder and the Nuggets. Those matchups left Jones paired against Luka Doncic, Steph Curry, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic, respectively.

Doncic scored 24 points on 6-of-16 shooting; Curry scored just nine points on 2-off-11 shooting; Gilgeous-Alexander shot 5 of 9 but nearly half of his 23 points (10) came at the foul line; and Jokic scored 28 on 10-of-18 shooting. Those are average to below average numbers for those players.

“There are great players in the league, and when you have guys like Herb that want to take on those challenges, it makes the game plans a lot easier,” Mosley said. “They want whatever’s coming to them, and they’re taking it on wholeheartedly.”

Mosley was quick to point out that his defense relies on everyone helping each other and communicating, adding that teammates such as Saddiq Bey and Yves Missi have the same mindset as Jones.

“The point of our defense is that you're not on an island when you're guarding these guys,” Mosley said.

Mosley’s defense had an immediate impact when he took over in Orlando for the 2021-22 season. He inherited a team that was 24th in the NBA in defense and it improved in each of his first four seasons, ranking as high as third in 2023-24 and second in 2024-25. Though the Magic slipped last season, the team still ranked a respectable 11th.

Jones’ third season (2023-24) was the season in which he was recognized with the All-Defense honor after starting 76 games. Two years ago he was limited to 20 games because of injuries, and last year he was limited to 56 because of an injury.

Now he’s healthy and is playing for a simpatico head coach.

“He's a joy to coach because he does all the little things so well,” Mosley said. “Defensively, he gets into the basketball. He's physical, he's aggressive, he's disruptive, and I think the more you can have a guy that's disruptive at the point of attack, it changes the way you play the game.”

Although Mosley had an experienced elite defender waiting for him when he arrived in New Orleans, Jones and the defensive guru have collaborated on how he can be even more effective.

“I think I have to be more sound defensively, not gamble as much because coach has shown me a lot of clips where I’m gambling, getting out of position and giving up a lot of stuff on the defensive side,” Jones said. “I try not to gamble. It’s hard for me not to, just because of my instincts. I think I see things before they happen a lot of times, but I think me being sound defensively, being in the right spots will help the team move forward.”