Zion Williamson’s homecoming wasn’t perfect, but it helped lift Pelicans over Hornets
Zion Williamson was finally free, finally loose on a fast break in the third quarter, finally a few hard steps and a leap and a slam away from sending the Charlotte Hornets’ towel-waving crowd into a frenzy for the wrong team.
But the moment everyone was waiting for never came.
Instead, though, before his takeoff, Terry Rozier swiped hard at Williamson’s arms. The ball was knocked out of bounds. The Pelicans’ bench erupted, wondering where the foul call was.
And the legion of Hornets fans — who arrived for their team’s home opener, yes, but also to see the Salisbury, North Carolina-born, Spartanburg, South Carolina-raised and Duke-educated star play in this arena for the first time since entering the NBA — slowly settled back into their seats.
This sequence felt emblematic of Williamson’s performance in the Pelicans’ 124-112 win over the Charlotte Hornets on Friday night in the Spectrum Center. He didn’t put on the perfect performance, the kind that he had delivered so many times before in this state.
But his homecoming was a victorious one nonetheless.
“A team like Charlotte, they keep fighting ‘til the very end,” Williamson said postgame. “So for us, it was just staying mentally sharp all the way to the end, and we did.”
Williamson finished with 16 points on 7-of-19 shooting, three assists and five rebounds in 30 minutes. He was double-teamed regularly and coughed up three turnovers because of it. He missed a few layups that seemed compulsory, and he couldn’t summon the kind of dunk or big moment that made him a Southern phenomenon.
He admitted that he was a bit frustrated Friday night, particularly considering his season-opening performance where he scored 25 points in a dominant win over Brooklyn. He said “those are shots that I just gotta finish” and that he’s “getting the shots I want, I just gotta be able to finish through contact.”
But he still had plenty of people to praise when talking about his team’s win.
“I say it a lot, our team is deep,” Williamson said, smiling as a 22-year-old living a dream does. “I haven’t played with a team like this throughout my life. Closest would be in college, but at the pro level, this is something different. And I say it all the time, this is a special team, and I’m excited to see what we’re going to do.”
New Orleans, at the moment, fields the kind of team that is the Hornets’ worst nightmare. The Pelicans were among the best in the NBA preseason in points in the paint, and the Hornets’ interior defense, as Friday night proved, remains largely unresolved. Williamson did most of his damage in the paint. Pelicans center Jonas Valanciunas, who averaged 17.8 points a game last season, dropped 30.
“Zion had three drives in the first quarter in semi-transition where we were nowhere to be found,” Clifford said postgame. “I mean, that’s my fault, that’s what I’m here for. But those are the things, the habits, the mentality, the mindset, that’s going to have to change.”
That’ll have to change for the Hornets to make this year special. And the Pelicans will need their 2019 No. 1 overall draft pick to be perfect for the team to be perfect.
But on Friday, Williamson was enough of the impact player the Carolinas had seen before. And it led to a Pelicans’ win.
“It’s love always,” Williamson said of playing in North Carolina. “Family, high school, it’s just love. They supported me through my journey, and I’m excited that they had a chance to come to the game.”
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated where Williamson was born. He was born in Salisbury, N.C., before moving to South Carolina.
This story was originally published October 21, 2022 at 11:21 PM.
