The New Orleans Pelicans are bringing Zion Williamson off the bench against the Houston Rockets on Thursday night, marking the second straight game the star forward has not been in New Orleans’ starting lineup.
Williamson remains on a minutes restriction as he recovers from a right hip adductor strain that forced him to miss six games. He came in as a substitute for the first time in his career in the Pelicans’ 114-104 victory over the Chicago Bulls on Sunday, finishing with 18 points and six rebounds in 26 minutes.
According to Pelicans interim coach James Borrego, using Williamson off the bench allows him to play longer stints while he’s on the court instead of having to come out after the first five minutes of the game due to his minutes limit. The arrangement gives Williamson a longer runway to find his rhythm while he’s on the court, and it makes it easier for him to maintain that rhythm throughout the game.
“It’s a clear communication between the two of us … we want to maximize his minutes,” Borrego said Thursday. “It made sense to him. It made sense to me. It allowed him to close (Sunday’s win) fresh. And we won the game, so that helps.”
When asked about Borrego’s decision to bring him off the bench in Chicago, Williamson told reporters, “Whatever this team needs me to do to win, I’m going to do it.”
“(Borrego) communicated with me earlier in the day. It was a gameplan that allowed me to close the game,” Williamson said. “My body is used to playing (a certain number of) minutes in a quarter. He walked me through it. I didn’t have a problem with it.”
In Chicago on Sunday, Williamson subbed into the game with 7:09 left in the fourth quarter and stayed on the court until the final buzzer. He scored seven of his 18 points in the fourth quarter as New Orleans put the finishing touches on its fifth win of the season.
“If you bring him off the bench, it lays out cleaner to finish in the fourth quarter in a more manageable way. You’re not rushing to bring him back in or take him out. It gets clunky in the fourth if he’s starting right out of the gate,” Borrego said. “Hopefully, the minutes will fluctuate in the next few games and he can get back to his normal rotation.”
Borrego also noted that Williamson’s willingness to come off the bench for the first time in his career sends a positive message to the locker room about his willingness to sacrifice for the team.
“If you’re about team and you’re about winning, you’re willing to make moves like that. If guys are willing to sacrifice, that’s a positive for our culture and our team,” Borrego said. “It’s trust at the end of the day. Do your players trust you? Do I trust my players? That’s the communication I’m having with these guys right now. They trust me, and I trust them.”
The Pelicans started rookies Jeremiah Fears and Derik Queen against Houston, along with wings Trey Murphy, Herb Jones and Saddiq Bey.
Williamson’s minutes pattern in fourth quarters has been a source of frustration for him in the past while he was on minutes restrictions, most notably during his rookie season. The issue came to a head when the Pelicans did not use Williamson at the end of a critical loss to the Utah Jazz in the first game of the 2020 bubble restart because he had exceeded the 15-minute limit imposed by the team’s medical staff.
