NEW ORLEANS – The story of this New Orleans Pelicans team will always begin and end with Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram. Their partnership —and their ability to stay on the court — will determine if this team has what it takes to compete at the highest level or if it’ll fall short like so many others in franchise history.

Advertisement

Earlier this month, they may have hit their lowest point as a duo in four-plus seasons as teammates.

New Orleans was in the midst of a five-game losing streak after a 4-1 start. Zion wasn’t scoring in the paint at his normal rate, while Ingram wasn’t running the offense with the level of efficiency the team expected. Through the first 10 games, the Pelicans were outscored by 26 points when both were on the court. Worse, the vibes around the team were a disaster, especially after Williamson hinted at his struggles with taking “a little bit of a back seat” on the court.

Those comments, which came after the last leg of the five-game losing streak, a 136-124 loss to the Dallas Mavericks, left the Pelicans with no choice but to face their issues on a much grander scale. Despite Williamson and Ingram being in the lineup, the Pelicans trailed by as much as 29 points in front of their home crowd.

Once the team gathered for practice the next day, it was clear some things needed to be addressed.

“We had to identify what we wanted. That was the biggest thing. We had to identify who we really want to be,” Pelicans veteran forward Larry Nance Jr. told The Athletic. “We had to reassert who we’re going to be and reinstall our core values.”

For nearly an hour, the team gathered before practice to talk through their problems. They ran through several topics, but two main points of emphasis emerged.

One was the need for the group to buy-in on a specific identity instead of everyone pulling in different directions. Three core characteristics needed to be non-negotiables for everyone moving forward: effort on defense, scoring in transition and sharing the ball. Though Pelicans coach Willie Green had been preaching the importance of all three for months, the players realized they needed to fully commit to everything that comes with those demands.

Advertisement

The other intended purposes of the meeting was to make clear that Williamson and Ingram were the emotional heartbeats of the team — especially with CJ McCollum sidelined with a partially collapsed lung — and things would only change once both fully committed to pushing the team in the right direction.

They haven’t looked back since.

“As a team, we weren’t on the same page before. Now, we’re on the same page,” Williamson said after Monday’s win over the Sacramento Kings. “We had a team meeting. We talked about what we want to do as a unit. That’s what we’re going to live and die with. Since we’re all on the same page, I think we’ve been gelling together a lot better.”

The Pels (7-7) aren’t just stacking wins. They’re playing their best basketball of the season against some of the stiffest competition the Western Conference has to offer.

In the last four games, the Pelicans have notched a 36-point win over a Kings team that had won six straight games prior to the matchup, a five-point win against the defending champion Denver Nuggets in the In-Season Tournament and a 21-point victory in a rematch against the Dallas Mavericks. The Pels’ only defeat was a one-point loss to the first-place Minnesota Timberwolves last Saturday with Zion resting on the second night of a back-to-back.

Everything the group spoke about during the meeting has come to fruition over the past four games. The team’s defensive rating went from 114.5 points allowed per 100 possessions in the first 10 games to 106.9 over the last four. They’ve scored at least 115 points in each of the four games after reaching that number just three times (twice in losses) in their first 10 outings. Much of that offensive success is due to them averaging 32.8 assists as a team over this stretch. The Pels aren’t just making more shots or taking advantage of their opponent’s bad luck. They’ve figured something out collectively, and it has them playing their best basketball of the season against the best competition the West has to offer.

Advertisement

Most importantly, Williamson and Ingram have been the ones leading the way. Their individual play has improved. Over the last four games, Ingram is averaging 26.8 points, 5.8 rebounds and 5.5 assists while shooting 52 percent from the field, 45 percent from 3 and 88 percent from the free-throw line. Williamson is averaging 23.7 points on 62.5 percent shooting in his last three appearances.

But their approach and preparation as a duo has also changed. Together, they’ve taken much more intentional steps to improve their own chemistry and find ways to be better together rather than excelling individually.

Since the loss to Dallas, Ingram and Williamson have spent extra time after practice drilling two-man actions with assistant coaches, exploring how to gauge the team’s spacing and work off each other in various half-court sets.

Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson getting some extra work in on their pick-and-roll game after practice

— Will Guillory (@WillGuillory) November 16, 2023

Herb Jones joined them after Tuesday’s practice, serving as the point guard while Williamson and Ingram cut off each other.

BI and Zion walking through some offensive sets after practice again today. This time, Herb Jones is working with them as well.

— Will Guillory (@WillGuillory) November 21, 2023

These extra post-practice sessions together, which they have not typically done during their largely injury-plagued tenure together as teammates, have allowed Williamson and Ingram to gain a better understanding of how to get the most from each other. They’ve also forced Williamson and Ingram to be more conscious about communicating on the court and working through what they’re seeing together rather than separately.

Their work yielded some immediate results near the end of last week’s victory over Denver, when the Pelicans picked up a crucial bucket late in the fourth quarter by running a set they worked on after practice the previous day.

With a five-point lead with two minutes left, the Pelicans ran a designed play to give Zion room to attack the paint. The play began with Zion tossing a pass to Ingram, who then immediately handed the ball back to Zion at the elbow while sprinting into Jonas Valančiūnas’ wing flare screen. Valančiūnas dove to the rim after screening for Ingram, allowing Williamson to drive without worrying about Denver’s Nikola Jokić coming over to help. That left the Nuggets with two unappealing options: Either allow Williamson to attack the open space with one defender in front of him, or send help from the top of the key and leave Ingram open for a 3. Zion ultimately drove quickly and scored a big bucket, plus the foul.

This play was an excellent illustration of the Pelicans using their two stars together in big moments. It also showed the rewards of the two stars laying down one brick at a time together in practice to build a sturdy foundation.

Advertisement

The budding chemistry between Williamson and Ingram came to the forefront again in Monday’s victory over Sacramento. Williamson poured in 18 points during the second quarter to put New Orleans ahead by double digits, followed by Ingram scoring 18 of his own in the third to put the game away. By the end of the night, the duo combined for 57 points despite neither of them playing more than 30 minutes.

In their last three outings together, the Pelicans have outscored opponents by 45 points in only 56 minutes with Williamson and Ingram on the floor together.

“There’s definitely a lot of progress that’s been made,” Williamson said. … “We both want the same thing, but we haven’t been on the court a lot together. The more we’re on the court together, the more our chemistry will build.”

BI and Zion Williamson were an UNSTOPPABLE duo in the Pelicans' impressive win over the Kings 🔥

Ingram: 31 PTS, 5 3PM, 4 REB

Williamson: 26 PTS, 3 STL, 75% FG

— NBA (@NBA) November 21, 2023

Meetings like the one the Pelicans had are common throughout the league, particularly in moments of crisis. The Chicago Bulls infamously held a players-only meeting after their first game of this season.

The results of these meetings vary. Sometimes, they can lead to players fanning flames on tensions that already existed under the surface. Sometimes, a lack of accountability or strong vocal leadership can lead to these talks having no effect. Nance, now on his fourth team in his ninth NBA season, explained why some work and some don’t.

“You have to come into it with an objective. You have to go in with an idea of what we’re trying to get out of this,” he said. “If it turns into everybody pointing fingers and blaming, you end up leaving worse off than you were going in.

“Do we want to identify a problem? Do we want to hold somebody accountable? Do we need to adjust our focus? I think everybody wanted the best. We were just swimming in different directions. I feel like we came out of it and now everyone is swimming in the same direction. I’m very pleased with our response.”

Advertisement

With McCollum and Nance returning to the lineup soon, along with forward Trey Murphy III’s expected return in the coming weeks and point guard Jose Alvarado now healthy after missing the season’s first 13 games, the Pelicans have the potential to become a dangerous team in the West if they can keep up what they’ve done as of late.

But the Pelicans also understand they, and their two stars, have experienced spurts of greatness before that they’ve struggled to sustain. Ingram and Williamson must show that they can stay healthy and maintain this level of focus and unselfishness for the rest of the season. Even with such a potent supporting cast (when healthy), nothing matters unless Ingram and Williamson perform like stars — together.

“They’re the heartbeat of this team. The heartbeat of this organization. They know it. These two can carry the weight of the organization. They’re that great,” Nance said. “I think the message is always that you have to continue to be worthy of that. Being worthy of that is showing up and being great every day. They don’t have to be vocal. We have people who can do that. They have to go out there and show it, and we’re going to follow.”

(Top photo: Sean Gardner / Getty Images)