The Pelicans needed Lonzo Ball on Sunday. With players dropping like flies to injury, New Orleans was quickly running out of guards and quickly falling out of the playoff picture.
In the not-so-distant past, Ball would have returned slowly. The Pelicans couldn’t afford that either with the team’s top two scorers in Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson out.
Ball knew all of the needs the Pelicans had on Sunday and stepped up to the plate, setting a career-high in 3-pointers with eight as part of his 27-point effort in his first game in three weeks, leading New Orleans to a 122-115 win in Houston.
He did it all while playing 37 minutes, 20 of those coming in the second half before cramping up in the final two minutes.
“We needed it, too,” head coach Stan Van Gundy said. “Obviously, he looked around and he knew what was going on when we played on Friday and how tough it was. He knew we needed him and he was anxious to get back out there.”
“He wanted to play. He wanted this win badly. He knew we needed him to do that. He didn’t want to come out when I took him out in the fourth and I just gave him…about a minute I think.”
Sunday was a showcase of how far Ball had come both in his mental approach and his skillset. Despite missing seven games, Ball came out of the gate firing, showing off his reformed jumper. Ball hit all four of his 3-point attempts in the first quarter, helping New Orleans to a 70-point first half.
“That guy works hard,” James Johnson said. “We see his work ethic. We see the amount of work he puts in. But for him to miss all those games and to have a rhythm like that, that just shows his confidence in himself and shows what he’s capable of doing every night for us.”
Yet, despite a double-digit halftime lead, Ball and the Pelicans watched it all slip away in the third period. Taking one of his rare breaks on the bench in the third, Ball wasn’t content watching the lead slip away and told Van Gundy to put him back in the game.
Ball checked out with the Pelicans up seven at the 5:54 mark. After six unanswered from Houston, Ball returned 67 seconds later. He would check out just once more in the fourth quarter for 90 seconds before cramping up with 1:24 left and exiting the game for good.
“I took him out to get a rest in the third quarter,” Van Gundy said, “things went south and he just said ‘Put me back in.’ And I was like ‘Alright, sounds good.’ We gave him one little minute there in the fourth quarter and then we gave Bledsoe about a minute and that was it. Those guys had to finish.”
Sunday was the seventh time Ball’s played at least 36 minutes this season. But each minute mattered on Sunday, particularly after Nickeil Alexander-Walker left in the first half with an ankle injury and did not return.
It was Ball that checked in for Alexander-Walker at the 3:31 mark of the second quarter. In total, Ball played 23:33 of the final 27:31. In his first game in three weeks. After missing seven games with a strained right hip flexor.
“I got a little tired in the first (quarter) but then after that, I felt good,” Ball said. “I was locked into the game all the way up until the cramp. I felt fine and I was telling Stan to leave me in and he trusts me to be in there and help the guys out so I tried to play as much as I could tonight.”
“It was amazing to see Lonzo back with us,” Willy Hernangomez added. “I love to play with him. I love to watch him play. He’s a really smart player, a really good player. It was really fun to watch him starting out the game then play along with him was something great. I think we missed him. We need him to get wins and get better. Hopefully, he’s going to be healthy and with us the rest of the season.”
With – and without – Ball, the Pelicans patched together a lineup in the fourth quarter that featured a heavy dose of Hernangomez to win the game. Ball, Bledsoe, Johnson and Wes Iwundu, the latter two only added at the trade deadline, rounded out the lineup that saw the game out.
It was an important win as the Pelicans moved to within a half-game of the 10th seed and a spot in the play-in tournament. The Pelicans knew that. Ball knew that. And both delivered.
“I was just proud of the guys,” Ball said. “We had a lot of lineups out there that we weren’t familiar with. But at the end of the day, we all played hard and came out victorious. No matter what was going on out there, we band together as a team and ending up finishing the job.”
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