New Orleans-Poco after the second triple-double of Zion Williamson in two weeks, he was asked if he could be in the best form of his career, and if he had really thrown up to 20 pounds of his listed weight of 284.
The 6 -foot and 6 -inch power striker smiled when he began to give his mocking response.
“I think I’m going to do what I have been doing all my career,” said Williamson. “I will let the media have fun with that.”
Whatever the case, Williamson is showing the ability to take care of the games spectacularly, and delight fans who still appear to see him play what has become, in regard to the classification, a lost season.
“When he is decided that he will attack, there really is nothing that the teams can do. He has been doing it lately, even in limited minutes,” said the New Orleans Pelicans coach, Willie Green, after the 127-120 victory of his team over the Los Angeles clippers on Tuesday night.
“When it is in high -level conditioning, as it is, it is really difficult to protect and it is doing everything,” said Green. “He is recovering. He is defending.”
Williamson’s performance of 22 points, 12 assistants and 10 rebounds against clippers containing playoffs was an exposure of energy and contagious force.
“Huge blocks. Huge rebounds,” Green said. “He divided a double team, went down the lane and ended with a monstrous dump. That type of energy plays really starts us.”
The fans who have long renounced to see the Pelicans in the postseason were standing and retired to see Williamson hitting the clock at the end of the third quarter with a drip from end to end and all speed and a Dunk Altis, which scored throwing a few blows to the filling under the basket.
The work prepared the stage for a fourth dominant quarter in which Williamson had 10 points, 5 assists and 5 rebounds.
“Once I discovered that rhythm, I just arrived in that area,” said Williamson, 24. “It came too far to lose this game.”
The Pelicans entered this season with the hope that Williamson’s trio, Brandon Ingram and CJ McCollum could make the club an external contender. That failed when the three were injured at the beginning of the season.
Williamson, plagued by injury for much of his first six seasons of the NBA, was lost 27 consecutive games with an injury to the hamstrings. As the exchange deadline approached, the Pelicans treated Ingram, which was in their last season under contract, Toronto.
The movement pointed out the pellans’ intention to move on to the next season with Williamson as their central piece. Williamson has responded with the first two triples of his career, the first when he had 27 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds in a victory in Phoenix on February 28.
“It’s different,” said veteran Ala Bruce Brown, who was changed to New Orleans last month. “Once you turn it on, once you enter and want to be aggressive, nobody can stop it. Even if you have a great session in painting, there really is nothing you can do.”
The center of the Reserve of the Pelicans, Mo Bamba, who had played against Williamson previously and made his debut with New Orleans on Tuesday, expressed it differently.
“Its launch platform. It is simply, as, it is crazy,” said Bamba, adding that Williamson’s pass skill is so underestimated. “
Williamson has scored 20 or more points in 10 of the 12 games in which he has played since the NBA exchange deadline on February 6. The first one was a 40 -point night in Sacramento on February 8. He scored 37 against the Lakers in Los Angeles last week.
“Physical ability has always been there,” said McCollum. “But I think it’s mentally taking the next step.”
Williamson said he is not sure if it is for him to judge if he is playing the best basketball of his career, but added: “This is the best I have felt, offensive and defensive.”
And lately, the fact that the Pelicans have little driving in each game has not decreased the intensity of Williamson.
“It’s about being a professional and what you want to get out of it,” he said. “The season has not come out in the way we wanted, but that does not mean that we cannot incorporate something next year, become better habits.”
