Zion Williamson didn't miss Sunday night. Not once. He went 9-for-9 from the field and dropped 25 points in 31 minutes at Intuit Dome. And the Pelicans still got run out of the building, 139-123 — by a Clippers team that walked in on a seven-game losing streak.

Let's get one thing out of the way: this isn't on Zion. You can't ask a guy to shoot better than perfect. But "Zion was perfect and they lost by 16" tells you a whole lot about where New Orleans is right now, and most of it doesn't have anything to do with him.

Nine Shots, Nine Handoffs

Go back and look at how those buckets happened. Cuts. A running alley-oop from Derik Queen. A layup in transition. One seven-foot floater. Four of them were set up by Jeremiah Fears. Every one came from within about seven feet of the rim, and every one was assisted.

That's absurdly efficient. It's also not exactly the Pelicans handing their best interior weapon the ball and telling him to go get one. Zion's usage rate Sunday was 19.5 percent. Saddiq Bey's was 24.2, and Bey went 3-for-12.

This isn't a one-night thing, either. Zion's using 21.1 percent of New Orleans' possessions this season, behind Fears, Queen, and Bey. Two seasons ago, he was at 32.5. Last year it was 25. Jamahl Mosley has said over and over again that this team's success is "by committee," and there's a smart version of that. Zion's played all 10 games, he's shooting 62.8 percent, and he isn't wearing himself down plowing into three defenders every trip.

But nine shots on a night he couldn't miss? That's light. He went 6-for-6 for 17 points in the first half and got three looks after the break. After a floater with 10:33 left in the third, he went more than 10 minutes of his own floor time without another field goal attempt.

To be fair, the Pelicans played well in that stretch, turning a seven-point halftime deficit into a four-point lead. So I'm not convinced the touches were the problem. I'm just not convinced they weren't either.

LA Didn't Stop Him. They Didn't Have To.

If you're looking for some genius Clippers scheme that took Zion away, I don't think there was one. When he got deep, they fouled him. Otherwise, they let him have his layups and went to work on the other end.

And man, did they go to work. This Clippers offense averaged 109.1 points over their last eight games, which isn't a group anybody's losing sleep over. They had 102 after three quarters. LA shot 54.8 percent, hit 16 threes, scored 60 in the paint, and turned 17 New Orleans turnovers into 20 points. Their bench won the reserve battle 59-38 behind Gradey Dick (15 on 6-of-7), Keaton Wagler (15), and Baba Miller (12).

Where It Actually Slipped Away

Here's the part that sticks with me. Zion checked out with 2:36 left in the third and New Orleans up 92-91. Totally normal rest window. When he checked back in with 8:56 left in the fourth, the Pelicans were down 110-97. Kobe Sanders hit two threes, Dick hit one, Wagler added another, and a one-point lead became a 13-point hole in less than six minutes.

Zion finished a flat zero in plus-minus. New Orleans lost his 17 minutes on the bench by 16.

It didn't get better when he came back. He scored on back-to-back trips to cut it to 119-105, and the Clippers answered with a Brook Lopez alley-oop and three Darius Garland free throws. LA scored 37 in the fourth, three of those buckets on putbacks or tip-ins.

New Orleans went to the line just once in the quarter, in garbage time. When you can't get a stop or close a possession with a rebound, it doesn't really matter who's perfect on the other end.

The Pelicans had climbed into the top half of the league defensively through nine games. As of Monday, they're 23rd in defensive rating. One night in Inglewood did that.

So no, nobody should be mad at a guy for going perfect. Zion took what the offense gave him and turned all of it into points. New Orleans is 4-6 after dropping two straight, and the bigger fix is on defense.

But when your most efficient scorer gets nine clean looks and you still give up 139, it might be worth finding out what happens when he gets 15.

All stats courtesy of NBA.com.

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