New Orleans Pelicans phenom Zion Williamson has spoken out about his team's miserable time inside the Disney World bubble thus far. With the Pelicans losing in yet another blowout on Thursday against the Sacramento Kings, Williamson was quick to reiterate how he intends to take things one game at a time.
According to Zion, he hopes that the pressure of knowing how their team is quickly fading away from the playoff picture out West will not affect how the Pelicans play their games moving forward:
“I play every game to win,” Williamson said, via Joe Vardon of The Athletic. “I can’t really speak personally for my teammates, I feel like they do play every game to win. The sense of urgency, personally I think we don’t want to play like that. You just want to play the game to win anyway. I feel like when you play with a sense of urgency, you just start doing stuff that you don’t usually do.”
Williamson is not wrong here, but it is clear that New Orleans must play with at least some sense of urgency if it wants to have any hope of making a late run for a postseason spot in a ruthless Western Conference. Then again, Zion offers a different perspective here in that he just wants to win every single game he plays in, regardless of the situation at hand.
The rookie was actually outstanding on Thursday, at least on the offensive end, finishing with 24 points (on 10-of-12 shooting), along with two rebounds, and two assists in just 22 minutes of action. The Pelicans continue to keep him on a tight leash, but he's clearly rounding into form after his strict minutes limit to start.
Unfortunately, it might just be too late for New Orleans. The Pelicans are now tied with the Kings in the West, 2.5 games behind the eighth-seeded Memphis Grizzlies and two games behind the ninth-seeded Portland Trail Blazers. The Phoenix Suns and San Antonio Spurs are also ahead of them.
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