Monday 3 February 2020 08:12, UK
The New Orleans Pelicans must get the ball to their rookie star Zion Williamson more frequently, says coach Alvin Gentry after loss to Houston Rockets.
Rookie sensation Williamson had 21 points and 10 rebounds for the Pelicans, whose three-game winning streak was snapped in a 117-109 loss to the Rockets on Sunday night. Early in the game, he threw down a spectacular alley-oop dunk from a half-court pass by Lonzo Ball.
Sunday's performance was the fourth 20-point game for Williamson. He is the first rookie to score 20 or more points four times in his first six games since Damian Lillard did it in the 2012-13 season. Before Lillard, the last one to do it was Kevin Durant in 2007-08.
However, Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry was unhappy that his team didn't get the ball to Williamson for long stretches in the fourth quarter.
"Zion can't go four minutes without touching the basketball and that's on me," he said. "That's something that I've got to make sure that that will never happen again."
Gentry was asked if the failure to get the ball to Williamson was a product of the team not being used to playing with the rookie who has only played six games.
"No," he said. "You've got to get him the damn basketball… if not there is no reason for us to have him in the game. And that's not going to happen either."
Williamson wasn't upset about his lack of touches in the fourth quarter.
"I trust my team-mates," he said. "They felt like what they did was the right play and I don't fault them with anything they did."
After fighting through a shooting slump in January, James Harden erupted for 40 points and came an assist shy of a triple-double as he led the Rockets to their second consecutive win.
Houston coach Mike D'Antoni has been around Harden long enough to know that he would eventually snap out of his stupor. But he admitted on Sunday that he was quite relieved to see it happen sooner rather than later.
"I can go home and go to bed now," D'Antoni said. "Before I wouldn't be sleeping much."
Harden, who added 10 rebounds and nine assists, poured in 26 points in the first half and cooled down in the second half. But he still had his second straight game with 30 or more points after failing to score 30 in his previous four games as he worked through an offensive slump.
"James is James, so we can put all that other stuff the rest because he seems like he's back," D'Antoni said.
Jrue Holiday had three points before Josh Hart made one of two free throws to allow New Orleans to cut the lead to 110-107 with about two minutes to go.
Eric Gordon added a basket seconds after that and Danuel House hit a three-pointer to make it 115-107 with less than a minute left to seal the victory.
Russell Westbrook added 22 points for the Rockets and Ben McLemore had 22 off the bench.
Harden was more interested in talking about Houston's defense down the stretch than his shooting.
"We did a pretty good and solid job the entire game," he said. "The fourth quarter was the time to lock it down and we did that to win the game."
