The last month has been a roller coaster for the New Orleans Pelicans. Seven consecutive wins, followed by four straight defeats, and now, after a thrilling 119-118 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night, a four-game winning streak.
Zion Williamson was the hero once again, as he put the Pels on his back in the final minutes of the fourth quarter and turned in the highest-scoring game of his career. He finished with 43 points on 14-of-21 from the field, three rebounds and five assists. Fourteen of those points came during the final two minutes and 44 seconds of the game, an outrageous run that may have been the pinnacle of the Williamson experience to this point.
The conclusion to Wednesday night’s game is exactly why Williamson has long been described as must-see TV. Every time the Pelicans play you feel a need to tune in because you don’t want to miss out on these remarkable moments.
As the clock ticked under three minutes, the Pelicans trailed by five and it seemed like their winning streak may be coming to an end. Williamson had other ideas. Over the final 2:44, he outscored the Wolves by himself, 14-8, to complete a stunning comeback. He had every single point and took all but one shot for the Pelicans during that stretch. He had three different game-tying baskets and two go-ahead scores, including the game-winning free throw with four seconds to play.
“I watched a lot of old school players and I tried to figure out their mindsets, and all their mindsets were the same. People remember winners,” Williamson said. “So, whenever that time comes for me to be done with the game of basketball, I want people to say that he was a winner. And CJ looked at me and said, ‘If you wanna be great, this is the time to step up.’ And that was all the motivation I needed.”
It was one of the best individual stretches we’ve seen in years, let alone this season. Everyone in the building knew he was getting the ball every time down the court, and it just didn’t matter. He was too athletic, too skilled and too determined for the Wolves to stop him.
Even Rudy Gobert, whom the Wolves gave up a fortune to acquire specifically for moments like this, had no answer. In one of the most stunning plays of the sequence, Williamson took off from just inside the free-throw line and floated to the rim for a finger roll layup before Gobert could even get off the ground.
“Like, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that,” McCollum said. “I don’t know if we will see somebody with that strength, that power, that speed with the ability to still jump east and west and straight up. He can jump east and west and finish, which is tough and makes it hard for defenses to guard him.”
Finally healthy after missing the end of the 2020-21 season and entire 2021-22 season due to injury, Williamson is fulfilling the promise that made him the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft. For the season he’s averaging 25.2 points, 7.2 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game, while shooting 60.7 percent from the field. Best of all, he has the Pelicans in first place in the Western Conference at 22-12.
