So much has changed since the last time Brandon Ingram suited up for the Pelicans.
He’s been out for 11 games with a left big toe contusion that happened the day after Thanksgiving. He won’t be making his return to the lineup until after Christmas — at the very least. During his time away, the Pels have put together their longest winning and losing streaks of the season: seven victories in a while rising to the top of the West, immediately followed by four defeats in succession to drop down to the third seed.
After a recent setback pushed Ingram’s return timeline back another week, there’s been growing frustration around his extended absence and looming questions about his team’s potential when it gets back to full strength. Pels coach Willie Green said on Wednesday that Ingram will miss at least the next two games as he continues his recovery, and it’s still unclear when he’ll be healthy enough to play.
“We’re still evaluating him and coming up with a plan and a timeline (for his return),” Green said. “He’s getting better. It’s just been a slower process than we all expected.”
The Pelicans’ expectations were already high before Ingram went down. But with Zion Williamson playing the best basketball of his career over the past month, the anticipation surrounding this team’s future hangs over its present, in both good and bad ways. During the seven-game winning streak, it was easy to forget how essential Ingram is to the Pelicans’ success. New Orleans went just 7-20 without him last year, so being able to win consistently without Ingram (9-6 this season) has been an important step in the Pelicans’ development.
“Considering the circumstances of Zion, BI and myself only playing 10 games together, if you would’ve told me we’d be (third) in the West, I’d say I’d take it,” CJ McCollum said. “Things can be a lot worse. I think that’s a sign of development. It’s a sign of growth. And it’s a sign we’re a good team.”
However, the last four defeats have offered a sobering reminder of his importance. For this group to reach its ultimate potential, its three best players — Williamson, Ingram and McCollum — need more court time together. Most importantly, they need to see how the offense looks with this version of Zion leading the way and Ingram as his sidekick.
Even though Williamson was leading the team in scoring and usage rate before Ingram’s injury, the offense was much more centered around Ingram and McCollum as the primary ballhandlers. Williamson’s possessions in half-court sets were mostly post-ups and isolations on the wing. He was an afterthought more often than anticipated. In his first 14 appearances this season, Williamson had four games with 11 or fewer field goal attempts and five games with less than 20 points.
With Ingram out, Williamson’s averages jumped to 28.6 points, 8.3 rebounds and six assists per game while shooting an absurd 63.5 percent from the field. He scored at least 20 points in 10 straight games before being held to 18 in Monday’s loss to Milwaukee. For the first time, Pels coach Willie Green fully embraced “Point Zion” as the orchestrator of his offense. It fueled the team’s temporary rise to the No. 1 spot in the Western Conference.
As teams have seen more of this Zion-centric offense, they’ve more aggressively put multiple bodies in Williamson’s path. This has forced New Orleans to lean on Williamson more than it ever has to continue producing quality offense. Williamson has only played 39 minutes or more nine times through the first 110 games of his career, but four of those have come in the last five games. While his numbers have remained mostly the same, it’s tough to maintain his brand of physicality and explosiveness for long stretches without wearing down. In a few of his recent games, it’s been clear he wasn’t playing at the same level in the fourth quarter. Considering Williamson’s injury history, the last thing the Pelicans should be doing is overtaxing his body.
This is the most important reason the Pels need Ingram back in the lineup. He is that secondary scorer who can take the pressure off Williamson in half-court sets. Most importantly, Ingram can run the offense efficiently himself for stretches, allowing Williamson to rest for more than just a few minutes each game. Lightening the load on Williamson’s shoulders throughout the game will make it easier for him to be dominant on both ends when the team needs it most.
It’s also important for the Pelicans to get more reps with Williamson in his current role and Ingram playing more like he did in 2020-21 rather than as the undisputed No. 1 option he has been throughout Green’s year-plus tenure. Some national pundits wonder if Williamson and Ingram fit well together because they both have operated so well as clear-cut No. 1 option while the other was injured. I’m less concerned, in part because Williamson scores so efficiently with his opportunities and in part because Ingram has improved as a shooter, making a career-best 46.7 percent of his 3s this season before his injury. But the whole team will benefit from the duo getting more court time together.
Ingram’s passing is a crucial piece that’s been missing from the Pelicans’ offense. Even though McCollum leads the team in assists, Ingram has the best court vision on the team and is more capable of making a wider variety of passes than anyone else on the squad.
His absence has forced Williamson and McCollum to create more of their own scoring opportunities while also shouldering the burden of getting the other players involved. In November, 45.4 percent of Williamson’s field goals were unassisted. That number jumped to 58.8 in December. The same was true for McCollum. In November, 47.4 percent of his field goals went unassisted. It jumped to 56.7 percent in December. Ingram’s toe injury against Oklahoma City happened on Nov. 25, near the end of the month.
Williamson’s emergence as a primary ballhandler also opens up the possibility of the Pels using Ingram more often as a screener in their two-man action, unleashing him as a short roller who can pick defenses apart in four-on-three situations. They can also flip those pick-and-roll actions to get Williamson rolling downhill without having to plow through three defenders off the dribble to get to the rim.
Regardless, the hope is that the offense will flow much smoother once Ingram gets back, giving the other two stars easier chances to get themselves going. His presence should loosen up the defense on both of those guys, and re-injecting his passing should allow the offense to flow much smoother for everyone else.
That’s particularly apt with Herb Jones, the player who probably missed Ingram the most on the team. The second-year defensive ace has become something of a target on the other end because his 3-point percentage has dipped to 30.2 percent, down from the respectable 33.7 percent mark from his rookie season. Opposing defenses have more blatantly left him wide open along the perimeter to double-team Williamson.
This is not a new tactic: Jones was also left open frequently last season but found ways to make himself a threat by cutting to the basket and delivering the extra pass when it was available. But those weakside cuts haven’t been nearly as effective on offense this season, in large part because Ingram hasn’t been there to deliver him the ball.
“BI just sees the court really well and he plays the game at such a great pace,” Jones said The Athletic. “He makes the game easier for a lot of us because he draws so much attention. We know if we get to the right spot, he’s going to find us.”
The two have developed a great connection over time in half-court sets, and no one on the team does a better job than Ingram of finding Jones on his patented cuts. Jones, in turn, usually knows exactly where and when to go so Ingram can find him.
Despite their injuries, Jones has scored 16 baskets off Ingram’s assists this season, the most he’s received from anyone else on the roster. McCollum is the only other player on the roster with more than 10 assists on Jones baskets. A healthy Ingram should also mean a revitalized Jones, on both ends.
Ingram may even help with one of the Pelicans’ most surprising recent issues: their inability to grab defensive rebounds at a high rate despite playing lineups with two bigs for most of the game. After ranking third in defensive rebounding percentage last season without Williamson, New Orleans has dropped down to 15th overall this season with him, including 26th in December specifically.
Ingram won’t be able to solve this problem by himself, but adding one more tall, long presence around the basket should take some of the pressure off Williamson and Jonas Valančiūnas to grab every rebound. In limited time together, the Ingram-Williamson-Valančiūnas frontcourt trio has battered teams around the basket, just as most expected. Per NBA.com, the Pelicans’ starting unit (McCollum-Jones-Ingram-Williamson-Valančiūnas) has played 113 minutes together, outscoring opponents by 6.3 points per 100 possessions while grabbing 75.4 percent of the available defensive rebounds and 55.5 percent of all available boards. Both numbers would rank No. 1 in the NBA over the course of the season.
The Pelicans played some of their best basketball over the last month with Ingram sidelined, but the recent four-game losing streak makes it clear things can be much better once he gets back. The big question is how long that will take.
(Photo of Brandon Ingram vs. Houston: Ned Dishman / NBAE via Getty Images)
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