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.

“CJ looked at me and said, ‘You want to be great? This is the moment to do it,'” Williamson recalled. “I took the challenge on.”

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.

“I didn’t say anything to (Williamson),” coach Willie Green said. “I think that’s just who he is. … He understands the moment and he made big plays after big plays. That’s what great players do.

“It’s incredible. His touch when he gets down the lane, with two or three guys hanging on him, and he’s still able to find the glass. He does a great job of trying to find his teammates as well. It’s a luxury for us to have a player like Z.”

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.

“It’s always great to get a win,” Williamson said. “I love winning. This team loves winning. This organization loves winning. On any given day, getting a win is great.”

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.

“I had a bad last two minutes,” said Embiid, who added 10 rebounds, three blocks and three steals. “That was on me.”

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 would have been great to steal the game tonight, but they deserved it so much more than us,” coach Doc Rivers said. “They played so much harder. Really, I’m just disappointed in how we approached the game.

“It’s almost like the basketball gods (said) down the stretch, ‘Yeah, you don’t deserve it.'”

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.

“We put no defense into the game until the second half, and we had to go zone to do that,” Rivers said. “We put no pressure into the ball. They literally went wherever they wanted to go.”

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.

–Field Level Media

The suddenly surging Washington Wizards will carry a three-game winning streak into the first date of a four-game road swing when they visit the Orlando Magic on Friday.

Washington, which lost 10 straight from Nov. 30-Dec. 18, has since rebounded to win four of its last five games.

Highlighted by a 127-102 blowout victory over Phoenix on Wednesday, completing the season sweep the Suns after a 113-110 win Dec. 20 in Phoenix, the Wizards’ recent successful stretch has come exclusively against opponents with records above .500.

In addition to the two victories over the Suns, Washington earned a 125-111 victory at Sacramento on Dec. 23 and clipped Philadelphia’s eight-game winning streak in a 116-111 decision on Tuesday.

Bradley Beal’s return to the Wizards’ lineup proved instrumental in the turnaround. They were without the three-time All-Star for six of the 10 games in their losing skid, and he played just less than four minutes of a seventh contest over that stretch.

Since rejoining the rotation on Dec. 18, Beal has averaged 25.8 points per game — but Washington was without him on Wednesday because of a hamstring injury.

Starters Kristaps Porzingis and Kyle Kuzma helped fill the void with 22 points apiece, as Kuzma has scored at least 21 points in five of his last six games. Rui Hachimura came off the bench to score 30 points, matching his career high and marking his third consecutive double-digit-point game since returning from a 16-game injury absence.

“Right away, his level of aggression, you could tell,” Wizards coach Wes Unseld Jr. said of Hachimura. “He was taking the right type of spots. He played with a sense of urgency, but he looked motivated. It was a good sign.”

Hachimura’s return to the lineup boosts Washington’s depth, which Unseld has credited for the team’s recently resurgent play.

The Magic have dealt with their own bouts of roster challenges. Markelle Fultz has played 15 of the Magic’s 36 games, Wendell Carter Jr. has appeared in 18 and Cole Anthony in 19. Rookie sensation Paolo Banchero missed a stretch of seven games in November.

Orlando still is without Jalen Suggs, who has missed the past month with an ankle injury, and Jonathan Isaac has yet to appear this season due to a knee injury sustained last season. But with a roster near full-strength, the Magic caught fire with wins in eight of nine games from Dec. 7-23.

The Magic dropped their last two heading into Friday’s matchup, however, with a 129-110 setback Tuesday against the Los Angeles Lakers and 121-101 loss Wednesday at the Detroit Pistons.

The loss at Detroit was further marred when the Magic’s Moritz Wagner was struck in the head by the Pistons’ Killian Hayes after Wagner crashed into Hayes during a chase for a loose ball.

Despite the ugly incident and the second straight loss, Orlando got a promising performance from Carter. His 16 points and eight rebounds made for his best showing in his three games since returning to the lineup.

“He’s performed great in the role he’s in right now, just trying to get himself back into shape,” Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said, according to the Orlando Sentinel. “We’ll ramp up the minutes as each game goes on. He’s finding his way and finding his groove after being out.”

–Field Level Media

Two teams looking to end four-game losing streaks will meet when the Milwaukee Bucks host the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday night.

Milwaukee is returning home following a 1-4 trip that concluded with a 119-113 overtime loss to the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday. The Bucks lost despite getting 45 points, 22 rebounds and seven assists from Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Minnesota fell victim on Wednesday to New Orleans star Zion Williamson, who scored a career-high 43 points in the Pelicans’ 119-118 victory. Wolves guard Anthony Edwards scored 27 points but missed a baseline jumper at the buzzer that sealed his team’s fate.

“It was a good, hard-fought game,” Minnesota point guard D’Angelo Russell said. “I think we got better as a team in a lot of ways. We couldn’t pull the game out, but that’s a tough team over there. We’ve just got to find a way to finish it.”

Edwards is averaging 28.8 points over the past six games to help keep the Wolves afloat minus center Karl-Anthony Towns, who is out indefinitely with a calf strain.

Minnesota is looking to even the season series against Milwaukee after losing 115-102 on Nov. 4. Bucks guard Jrue Holiday had 29 points to lead all scorers.

Holiday missed Wednesday’s game because of a non-COVID illness and is listed as day-to-day. The Bucks also could be without forward Khris Middleton, who has missed the past six games due to a sore right knee.

Milwaukee is in danger of losing five straight for the first time since February of the 2020-21 season.

“We just gotta keep going. A lot of clichés you could throw out there, right,” Bucks center Brook Lopez said. “Learn from these games. Take what we can, just keep working, trying to get better. Let’s not think about losing. Let’s try to get back to winning.”

Milwaukee was 9 of 44 (20.5 percent) from 3-point range in the loss to Chicago, continuing the team’s recent struggles from beyond the arc. Grayson Allen missed 11 of his 14 shots from 3-point range on Wednesday.

The Bucks squandered a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter against the Bulls, but Bucks guard Wesley Matthews said his team needs to stay positive.

“We can learn from it,” he said. “It’s four straight (losses) now. For the most part, we were in control of the game — just let it slip away. It’s the NBA. It’s a good team, but we gotta be better. Gotta be better offensively, defensively, execution-wise, top-to-bottom. We gotta come out with a win, but we didn’t.

“Beauty of the NBA is a short memory, and we got another hungry team ready and waiting on us in Milwaukee.”

Minnesota hopes to have Kyle Anderson available after the forward missed the past five games due to back spasms.

With Anderson sidelined, the Wolves have leaned heavily on third-year pro Jaden McDaniels. The forward had 19 points and seven rebounds in the loss to New Orleans and is averaging 5.6 rebounds over his past six games.

With Towns out, Minnesota is looking for more consistent production from center Rudy Gobert.

In his first season with the Wolves since being acquired from the Utah Jazz, Gobert is averaging 13.8 points, 12.0 rebounds and 1.3 blocks. He has 10, 10 and eight points, respectively, in his past three games.

–Field Level Media

The Chicago Bulls will look to ride the momentum of a victory over one of the NBA’s top teams into Friday night’s home game against the cellar-dwelling Detroit Pistons.

DeMar DeRozan had a huge hand in rallying the Bulls to their fourth win in five games on Wednesday night. He scored 10 points in overtime and finished with 42 overall in Chicago’s 119-113 victory against Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks.

The Bulls showed resolve by rallying from an 11-point deficit with less than three minutes to play in regulation.

“I guess the best bring out the best out of you,” said DeRozan, who boasts team-leading averages in points (26.5) and assists (5.0) for the season. … “We’ve got to carry that within and go out there and play like that every single night and not worry about we’re playing a good team, are we playing a not-so-good team and we’re going to run over them.

“We’ve got to play with that sense of urgency every single night, and nights like this we’ve got to turn into consistency.”

The Bulls should take that to heart, considering they lost 133-118 to the Houston Rockets — one of the worst teams in the NBA — on Monday.

On Wednesday, Zach LaVine made four 3-pointers for the second time in his last three games. Two of those came during the final minutes of regulation.

“We just kept fighting,” LaVine said. “Obviously, we were trying to man up and do everything we could to keep them off the boards; Giannis was attacking. We made big plays down the end and got to overtime and were able to put it away.”

The Bulls have won 11 straight contests against the Pistons. Detroit’s most recent victory over Chicago was on March 10, 2019.

The Pistons snapped a six-game skid overall with a 121-101 victory over the Orlando Magic on Wednesday.

Alec Burks made his first 10 shots from the floor and sank six 3-pointers to highlight his season-best 32-point performance. Saddiq Bey also drained six shots from beyond the arc to finish with a season-high-tying 28 points.

Hamidou Diallo collected 11 points and five rebounds off the bench before he joined teammate Killian Hayes and Orlando’s Moritz Wagner in being ejected for their roles in an ugly skirmish in the second quarter.

Before the game, Detroit coach Dwane Casey praised Diallo for the enthusiasm he brings when asked about the contributions of Diallo and former Kentucky teammate Kevin Knox II.

“Hami is outplaying Kevin right now,” Casey said. “Nothing huge — just Hami’s energy, his pace and making plays. Not orthodox in a lot of ways, but he gets it done. Right now, I love his energy. He stayed ready, and he’s taking advantage of that opportunity.”

Detroit’s Bojan Bogdanovic, who is averaging a team-leading 20.7 points, was limited to 14 on 4-of-14 shooting Wednesday. He is shooting just 35.1 percent from the floor over his past four games (20 of 57).

–Field Level Media