a 125-118 loss<\/a> to the Denver Nuggets.<\/p>\nWilliamson played 29 minutes after missing eight games with a strained left hamstring. He also had six rebounds, five assists, a steal and a blocked shot.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was great. He got us off to a really good start,\u201d Pelicans interim coach James Borrego said, referring to the Pelicans\u2019 23-10, first-quarter lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore than anything, just having Zion out there for our spirit as a team, as a city, as an organization, is phenomenal,\u201d Borrego said. \u201cWe feel like we\u2019ve got a shot every night when he\u2019s on the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Borrego said his staff was mindful of Williamson\u2019s minutes and didn\u2019t want to overexert him in his first action since Nov. 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe looked good. He looked impressive,\u201d Borrego said. \u201cThe game plan was built around him and he was a willing passer tonight. They showed him bodies. He generated a lot of quality shots for us tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williamson declined to speak with reporters after the game.<\/p>\n
Rookie Derik Queen, who started opposite Nuggets star Nikola Jokic at center, was New Orleans\u2019 leading scorer with a career-high 30 points and nine assists. Queen said his output stemmed in no small part from the attention Denver defenders were paying to Williamson and high-scoring wing Trey Murphy III.<\/p>\n
\u201cZ\u2019s presence and Murph\u2019s presence is huge because they\u2019re 1 and 2 out there,\u201d Queen said. \u201cThey just trust me to play my game and try to make all the right decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pelicans (2-13) won two games after Williamson first went out of the lineup, but have since lost seven straight.<\/p>\n
Williamson, who also missed a game earlier this season with a foot injury, has now played in six of the Pelicans\u2019 first 15 games, averaging 21.3 points and 6.8 rebounds.<\/p>\n
Entering Wednesday, Williamson, the No. 1 pick out of Duke in 2019, had played in 219 of 486 regular-season games in his NBA career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zion Williamson gets up for a big dunk in his return to the lineup vs. Denver. NEW ORLEANS…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[7,301,187,3943,6,302,63161],"class_list":{"0":"post-424109","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-nuggets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-denver","10":"tag-denver-nuggets","11":"tag-denvernuggets","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-nuggets","14":"tag-zion-williamson-return"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115584117251728835","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}