{"id":554830,"date":"2026-01-23T05:36:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T05:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/554830\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T05:36:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T05:36:27","slug":"zion-williamson-cleared-to-play-against-grizzlies-after-illness-in-last-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/554830\/","title":{"rendered":"Zion Williamson Cleared to Play Against Grizzlies After Illness in Last Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zion Williamson<\/a> and the New Orleans Pelicans<\/a> suffered their third straight loss on Wednesday night. They put up a good fight against the Detroit Pistons<\/a>, the No. 1 team in the Eastern Conference, but New Orleans still came up short, 112-104.<\/p>\n

Williamson started for the Pelicans on Wednesday, but he was not able to finish the game. The two-time All-Star was forced to exit<\/a> after just 15 minutes of action due to an illness. Williamson was not able to return, finishing with four points and four rebounds.<\/p>\n

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New Orleans is back in action on Friday against the Memphis Grizzlies<\/a>, and the team has already revealed Williamson\u2019s status. <\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

New Orleans Pelicans forward Zion Williamson (1)\u00a9 Rob Gray-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

(\u00a9 Rob Gray-Imagn Images)<\/p>\n

Williamson headed into the Pistons game with a questionable tag due to illness. He tried to play through the issue, but only managed 15 minutes before he went back to the locker room mid-game. It did not take long for the Pelicans to rule him out for the rest of the contest.<\/p>\n

The good news for New Orleans is that Williamson appears to have shaken off his illness. The Pelicans released their official injury report<\/a> for Friday\u2019s game against the Grizzlies and Williamson was not included on the list.<\/p>\n

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The report also indicated that Herb Jones is questionable to play with right ankle sprain. Jose Alvarado remains out with a left oblique strain.<\/p>\n

Williamson has played 30 games for the Pelicans this season. The 6-foot-6 power forward is averaging 21.9 points on 58.2% shooting, 5.7 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 1.1 steals in 28.8 minutes per contest.<\/p>\n

The Pelicans enter Friday\u2019s game with a 10-36 record. As of writing, they have the worst record in the entire NBA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Williamson and Co. will be on the road against the Grizzlies. Tip-off from FedExForum is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. ET. This will be the first of an upcoming three-game road trip for the Pelicans. <\/p>\n

Related: NBA’s Punishment Decision for Pelicans-Suns Fight Revealed<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Athlon Sports<\/a> on Jan 22, 2026, where it first appeared in the NBA<\/a> section. Add Athlon Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zion Williamson and the New Orleans Pelicans suffered their third straight loss on Wednesday night. They put up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3795],"tags":[7,188,294,4202,11053,293,177,4070,6,478,470,181,4439,814],"class_list":{"0":"post-554830","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-memphis-grizzlies","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-detroit-pistons","10":"tag-grizzlies","11":"tag-herb-jones","12":"tag-jose-alvarado","13":"tag-memphis","14":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","15":"tag-memphisgrizzlies","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-new-orleans","18":"tag-new-orleans-pelicans","19":"tag-the-grizzlies","20":"tag-the-pelicans","21":"tag-zion-williamson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115942797848519424","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554830","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=554830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}