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Andrew LopezESPN
Last Saturday, after a disappointing loss to the San Antonio Spurs, New Orleans Pelicans striker Zion Williamson told reporters he felt his team was close to what it wanted to be. The Pelicans had just played two tough games with defeats against the Milwaukee Bucks and Spurs, but he thought things could change soon.
“I think we’re almost there,” Williamson said. “I really feel like we’re almost there. There are the last things we need to find out, but we’re almost there.”
Consider a step in the right direction on Monday night.
Behind Williamson’s load in the third quarter, the Pelicans knocked down the team with the best record in the league, holding on late to defeat the Utah Jazz, 129-124.
The Pelicans maintained a 17-point lead early in the fourth quarter, but saw the Jazz shrink to 1 in the final minute before holding on to a pair of stops in Utah’s final three possessions. . Pelicans coach Stan Van Gundy joked when his team didn’t stay in the lead as much as he was able to increase it enough until Utah couldn’t return.
The Jazz (27-8) entered the game with a gap of more than 161 points in the third quarter of this season, which was 70 points better than any other team. But the Pelicans (15-19) outscored them by 16 on Monday in the third quarter, the worst third-quarter differential of the season for Utah.
“Tonight, we wanted to come out strong in the third,” said Pelicans ’Lonzo Ball. “That was one of the focal points of the coaching staff. This game, Utah has been blowing people in this third quarter, so that was one of the focuses. Z led the charge in the third for us.”
Williamson scored 15 of his 26 points in the third quarter when the Pelicans gained their lead.
“My mindset was what I can do to get energy from teammates, that’s what I will do,” Williamson said. “In the third quarter, after the first two quarters of reading his defense, I really had an idea and I was on the attack.”
Attacking the basket was the focus of the pelicans throughout the night. They finished with 74 points in the paint, the highest any team has scored in the paint against the Jazz in the last 25 seasons, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.
“It’s crazy that we get to the basket as much with a defensive player as Rudy Gobert, where he’s on the edge all night, every night,” Pelicans striker Brandon Ingram said of the Utah All-Star Center. “But we got it.”
Scoring so much in the paint meant the Pelicans didn’t have to rely on 3-point attempts. New Orleans ranged from 7 to 11 points from a three-point lead, and the 11 attempts were the poorest in a game by any winning team in the last four seasons, according to ESPN Stats & Research. Information. Along with Utah’s 43 attempts from depth, the game had the biggest differential between two teams for 3-point attempts this season.
When Williamson scored in the third quarter, the Pelicans stayed with him and even went straight to Gobert, the double defensive player of the year, on a few occasions.
“It means he’s not afraid,” Ingram said of Williamson, 20. “Knowing that [Gobert is] a defensive player of the year twice or just a really, really good defensive player, he’s not afraid. Know the angles of the shot. He knows what to do when he enters the game. It will not hesitate anyone. He will go on and on until he gets to where he wants to go. “
So far this season, the Pelicans have won the Utah, Milwaukee and Phoenix Suns, as well as a 24-point comeback over the Boston Celtics, but they also have losses to the Detroit Pistons and Minnesota Timberwolves, teams at the bottom. of the classification in their respective conferences.
For a team that Williamson believes is “almost there,” Van Gundy said the Pelicans have enough talent to beat anyone in the league, but they make too many mistakes and have not been consistent enough on defense to win the way they do. fly .
Williamson agreed.
“For us to go up to the next level, we have to continue it for the next few games,” Williamson said. “We have to be consistent with it.”