When New Orleans trailed the Minnesota Timberwolves by five points with less than three minutes remaining Wednesday night, Pelicans guard CJ McCollum gave a message to star forward Zion Williamson.
Williamson scored New Orleans’ last 14 points in the final 2:44, producing a 119-118 victory. The Pelicans will seek their fifth consecutive victory when they host the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday night.
Williamson, who missed the last three games before Wednesday because of COVID-19 protocol, has helped the Pelicans forge a tie with Denver atop the Western Conference even though second-leading scorer Brandon Ingram has missed the last 15 games because of a toe injury.
Williamson, now a fourth-year pro after missing all of last season because of a foot injury, is averaging 25.8 points, 7.0 rebounds and 4.7 assists as well as shooting 60.7 percent from the floor.
The Sixers have been doing a lot of winning themselves, though their eight-game winning streak came to an end with a 116-111 loss at Washington on Tuesday.
Philadelphia lost despite Joel Embiid scoring 48 points and James Harden adding 26 points and 13 assists.
The Sixers trailed by 111-108 when Embiid lost a turnover with 1:29 left. The score was the same when Embiid drove to the basket and Deni Avdija blocked his layup attempt.
After the Wizards extended the lead to six, Embiid did make a 3-pointer to cut the deficit in half, but Philadelphia, which trailed by as many as 16 points, didn’t score again.
It was the third consecutive game in which the Sixers fell behind by double digits in the first half, though they had rallied to defeat the Clippers and the Knicks.
The 76ers upgraded guard Tyrese Maxey to probable for the New Orleans game. Maxey has missed the past 18 games with a foot fracture. He was averaging 22.9 points to go with 4.4 assists and 3.5 rebounds in 15 starts prior to the injury.
