Zion Williamson, Pelicans Trash the Golden State Warriors in the Second Half, 115-101

The New Orleans Pelicans posted their 25th win of the season, beating the Golden State Warriors in California tonight, 115-101. It was their fifth win over the previous six events, and the fourth game in which Zion Williamson came up as the No.1 scorer.

The first overall pick from this year’s draft, posted 28 points and 7 boards, shooting 13-for-20 from the field, but hitting 1-for-6 from the free-throw line.

“He showed effort and he showed fight,” said Jrue Holiday about his young teammate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOHoSzWKsm8

His Pelicans were trailing 10 points at the halftime, 56-46, but came out in the second, tightened up the defense, shifting into a higher gear on the other side, before rolling over the Warriors.

But even though Zion had the most points, the guy with the biggest impact on the game was Holiday, whose second half was fantastic. The experienced point guard dropped 21 of his 23 buckets in the second half.

“We knew we didn’t come out with the energy that we needed. We kind of got reamed out in the locker room.” Holiday said.

The Pels were shooting 37.5% in the first halftime but improved to 59.2% in the second. According to Holiday, who was arguably the best player on the floor, everything started with Zion, who moved the guys with several of his plays.

“Yeah, it was the rook. It was Zion. He was battling his ass off.”

We saw the Pelicans’ potential in the second, and although the Warriors are not quite the proper measure for anything this season, that can’t diminish guests’ performance.

“We knew we didn’t come out with the energy we needed, we knew what the problems was and we just came out and played hard,” Holiday added.

The Italian forward Nicolo Melli had 20 points, and 5 boards, and was shooting threes six-for-seven. His downtown hits were something that pretty much killed the morale of the Dub Nation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqi3LqZOVs0

Holiday had 15 assists and seven boards apart from his 23 points, and was including all of his teammates into the game. He was covering up Brandon Ingram, who had a bad shooting night. The young forward posted 17 points with 5 assists but making just five of his 18 shots.

Derrick Favors had six points and 11 boards, while Josh Hard added 8 with 10 rebounds.

On the other side, the hosts had Damion Lee with 22 points and four boards and assists, Jordan Poole had 19, while Juan Toscano-Anderson with 16 and Ky Bowman with 15 entered off the bench. The latter added 7 assists and 6 boards.

Andrew Wiggins was in a slow mode, with 8 points and shooting just 3 of 16 from the field. He did have 9 boards and 4 assists, but the overall impression is that he had to be better.

The Warriors are dead last in the Western Conference, with 12 wins and 45 losses, and aren’t looking good at all. Up next, they await the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday and after that the Lakers on Thursday before jumping to Phoenix to face the Suns on the second of back-to-back nights.

On the other side, the Pelicans are starting to move up, and they are three and a half games behind the Grizzlies. They have a clash with the Lakers coming up on Tuesday, at the Staples Center, and after that, start a three-game homestand. The first rivals will be the Cavaliers, after that the Lakers and finally the Timberwolves. Alvin Gentry’s boys need to win all these, and hope that the Grizzlies are going to enter some poor stretch in the meantime.