PHOENIX — Late in Sunday afternoon’s fourth quarter, the New Orleans Pelicans’ 2023-24 season was on the brink.
The pressure couldn’t have been higher in a must-win game for New Orleans. After controlling much of the second half against the Phoenix Suns, the Pelicans’ lead was vanishing and momentum was slipping away. A loss would have marked their fifth consecutive defeat, and their chances of avoiding the Play-In Tournament would have been hanging by a thread.
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That’s when Zion Williamson decided he saw enough.
“I just looked at Larry (Nance) and said, ‘Find me. I’ll make a play for us,’” Williamson recalled.
The Pelicans star, finally healthy and fulfilling the promise that made him the No. 1 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, stepped up when it mattered most. He scored or assisted on 12 of his team’s final 18 points, and his improved defense, long a weak spot in his game, was on full display with two crucial blocks. His clutch playmaking helped guide the Pelicans to a 113-105 victory that could go down as the most important of the season.
Williamson filled up the box score in every way, finishing with 29 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists and a career-high five blocks in one of the most dominant performances of his professional career. He joined Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins as the only players in franchise history to record a game with at least 25 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and five blocks.
“That s— was legendary. That s— was really legendary,” Pelicans teammate Trey Murphy said.
After Sunday’s result, New Orleans and Phoenix hold a 46-32 record with four games left in the regular season. If the playoffs began today, the Suns would have the sixth seed over the Pelicans because of their head-to-head tiebreaker. However, winning on Sunday gives the Pelicans a much more feasible path to claiming the sixth seed by the season’s end and dodging the Play-In Tournament.
As crucial as the win was for the Pelicans’ hopes of returning to the playoffs, this game’s significance has much more to do with Williamson’s continued ascension into superstardom. His first four seasons as a pro were more chaotic and unproductive than even his biggest skeptic could’ve imagined when he entered the league. But he’s turned it around this year with the healthiest and most successful season of his career.
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Sunday’s performance against Phoenix’s trio of multiple-time All-Stars encapsulated everything Williamson has done to reach this point. His team’s back was against the wall. He was without his co-star Brandon Ingram, who’s missed the last nine games with a knee injury. He was listed as questionable to play after missing Friday’s loss to San Antonio with a finger injury. And his team was going against its own personal Boogeyman in Suns star Devin Booker, who had scored 50 or more points in his last three games against the Pelicans.
But Williamson cleared each of those hurdles with ease. And he did it in the fourth quarter by answering every question his critics have thrown his way.
Is he in shape? Can he perform in the clutch? Is he a defensive liability? Does he care about winning?
Check, check, check and check.
“It was kind of one of those moments. People remember the greats because of key moments, whether it’s in the playoffs or a key regular season win,” Williamson said. “If I want to be one of those players, I’ve got to make it happen in those moments.”
The complaints about Williamson’s defense were the most valid of all the on-court criticisms he’s received earlier in his career. He admitted he heard the criticism and used it as motivation.
“I could definitely tell at the beginning of the season, because I’m an offensive player as well, the other team would try and hunt me on defense,” Williamson said. “I’m watching the film and I didn’t like that. … I just started taking a lot more pride in it. I worked on it and I continue to work on it so if I get called up, I can hold my own.”
Over the past few months, Williamson has backed up those words with more consistent effort. These days, he seems to come up with a new spectacular block or a steal out of nowhere on a nightly basis. He’s one of 12 players to accumulate at least 20 steals and 20 blocks since the All-Star break, and he’s notched more points and assists than anyone else on that list.
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Sunday may have been Williamson’s most impressive defensive effort as a pro. He spent time guarding Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal throughout the night and did a decent job of moving his feet and keeping two elite scorers in front of him. In the past, guys of that caliber would’ve had no problem blowing by Williamson for easy baskets. This time, he took those matchups personally. As much as the Suns stars tried to target him throughout the game, he rarely allowed them to get anything easy.
Then, there were the blocks. Williamson racked up five by the end of the game, and each one seemed more ferocious than the one before. He’s improved quite a bit with the timing of his jumps, and very few people can get up as high as he can. Just as the ball handler (Durant, in this case) thinks they have a comfortable route to the basket, Williamson swoops in to erase their shot, like a shark feasting on its prey.
His five blocks were the most he’s had in any game since his second appearance as a collegiate player at Duke, when he swatted away six shots against Army. Considering his defensive dominance and the timing of his offensive production, Williamson outdueled a trio of Suns stars with a combined 21 All-Star appearances between them.
While 29 points and seven assists are not as gaudy as some of the numbers Williamson has put up in past games, the way he attacked the Suns produced some key developments that could pay dividends as his game continues to evolve. In particular, he stunned the Suns in the second half by draining rare pull-up jumpers from 13 and 16 feet, respectively, to counter the Suns crowding the paint.
Every opponent knows that Williamson wants to get the majority of his shots at the rim. Coming into Sunday’s game, he had only attempted 11 shots from 12-to-16 feet the entire season and 14 other attempts from that distance in the first four years of his career. Adding a bit of diversity to his game could go a long way.
“People are so far back (when they guard him). If he’s able to hit that consistently, there’s not a person in the league that could guard him,” said Murphy.
Then there were the more nuanced ways Williamson attacked the Suns’ defense. Over the past few games, opponents have completely ignored the Pels’ other big man, choosing instead to park a center under the basket to wait for Williamson as he attacks the rim. This approach had given the Pelicans loads of trouble lately, especially with Ingram sidelined.
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Pelicans coach Willie Green responded immediately to the Suns’ use of this method by sitting starting center Jonas Valančiūnas for good four minutes into the game. For the rest of the night, Williamson, Nance, and 6’7 second-year wing Dyson Daniels occupied the center minutes.
Daniels seemed to crack the code against this defensive strategy by flashing to the free-throw line to give Williamson an outlet whenever the Suns shaded multiple bodies into the star’s path. Zion responded by making the simple pass to Daniels, and the Pels’ second-year guard knocked down several floaters right in front of the basket, which freed up enough space for Zion to operate.
“(Daniels) really opened up the game and broke down their gameplan, which teams have been really doing it to slow us down,” Murphy said. “Since Dyson’s man is probably in the paint, we’ve been having him flash and he’s able to hit that floater. It’s hard to really guard that.”
The adjustment may be subtle, but it shows the ways Zion and his teammates are considering counters throughout the game. Zion’s otherworldly physical gifts are tough enough to handle. But as the Suns learned the hard way Sunday, the more Williamson starts thinking the game instead of merely playing it, the more dangerous he and his team will become when the stakes get even higher.
(Top photo: Allan Henry / USA Today)
