Zion Williamson named his team after a second embarrassing loss on Wednesday night, according to an The ESPN story. The Pelicans lost 145-111 at home to a team from Brooklyn that entered the game with just two wins. It came two days after a franchise-record 51-point loss to Golden State.
Williamson called the performance “unacceptable” and listed several areas where the players need to improve.
“As men, we have to, as a unit, players, coaches, everybody, you have to go look at yourself in the mirror when you’re by yourself and say, did I do everything I needed to do for my team?” Williamson said. “Did I — was I in the gaps on defense? Was I the low man when I had to be? Did I get out there and fight for shots to make them difficult? Did I do everything I needed to do? Did I give real effort? That’s what everybody has to do.”
Williamson’s career has been plagued by injuries, but he has made efforts to improve in that area. He played in 62 games last season, even as a slow start kept New Orleans from serious postseason contention, and he’s been available for 11 of the first 12 games this year, averaging 32.7 minutes a night. The top pick in the 2019 draft has never reached the playoffs and is hoping to spark a turnaround after his team fell to 4-8.
“I said nobody likes to lose like that, but if we don’t like to lose like that, we have to start with ourselves.” Williamson added. “Look in the mirror and say, did I do what I needed to do for my team? Not individually. Did I do what I needed to do for my team? And then we go from there.”
There’s more from New Orleans:
- The Pelicans have dropped 145, 138 and 139 points in their last three games, which is a bad sign for the coach Jamal Mosleywho was hired this summer to fix the team’s defense after building a strong reputation in that area during his five years in Orlando, notes Les East of NOLA. “I’m not doing my job at this point, making guys sit down and guard,” Mosley pleaded guilty Wednesday.
- Before Wednesday’s game, Mosley explained why Derrick Quinn left the bench and wandered the court midway through Monday’s game at Golden State (Link to video on Twitter by Luke Evans of The San Franciso Chronicle), relay Rod Walker of NOLA. “The thing is, Derrick was talking about his neck before the game,” Mosley said. “At that point he went to walk back to treat his neck because he was going to lie down and didn’t want to lie down on the bench. It’s a difficult arena to find a locker room.” Even with the explanations, Mosley admitted, “the optics are not at all what we want them to look like.”
- Dejounte Murray deleted a tweet which seemed to express dissatisfaction with his situation after Wednesday’s loss, trans By Paolo Mariano of ClutchPoints. In response to a post pointing out the Pelicans’ poor performance in the games Murray has played, he wrote: “From what’s going on INSIDE, it looks like someone punched you to say that! THE ‘SABOTAGE’ IS REAL!!!!!!!”