Who says Zion Williamson can't play defense? With the Milwaukee Bucks holding a slim one-point lead against the New Orleans Pelicans late in the second quarter Thursday night, Williamson destroyed a layup attempt by Donte DiVincenzo, spiking the ball hard off the backboard.
Clearly, Zion didn't appreciate the guard thinking he could score off him (Clip via NBA):
š« ZION SPIKES IT OFF THE BACKBOARD! š«
He also has a career-high for PTS in a half with 24 on TNT. pic.twitter.com/RGcUDBWUzA
ā NBA (@NBA) February 26, 2021
While DiVincenzo was initially able to blow by a staggering Eric Bledsoe above the arc, the guard quickly ran into opposition once he entered the lane. With Williamson realizing that the guard had beaten Bledsoe off the dribble, Zion rotated over and tracked DiVincenzo as he looked to take an outside angle up and around the defending big man. Though the center lacked the smaller player's foot speed, he more than made up for it with a ferocious leap that carried him well above the cylinder and into position to swat the rock away.
Zion may not boast the best defensive instincts, but he is more than capable of making up for his faults with sheer athleticism.
In his second season with the Pelicans, Williamson has displayed genuine improvement on defense from his rookie season a year ago. Whereas the big man was consistently a net-negative on that side of the court throughout his first 24 games, Zion has not only had multiple matches of late in which he has made a difference on āDā, butĀ has improved to the point where he is almost a net-neutral on defense, according to the defensive plus-minus metric used by Basketball-Reference.
As DiVincenzo just learned, Zion is also getting scary when he's defending.
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