Why did Alvin Gentry sit Zion Williamson in final minutes vs Jazz?

Zion Williamson was on a minutes restriction against the Jazz, but none of that time came at the end of regulation

Alvin Gentry created some Twitter enemies on Thursday night when he sat rookie phenom Zion Williamson in the closing minutes of the New Orleans Pelicans loss to the Utah Jazz in the opening seeding game in the NBA bubble. Williamson, of course, is on a minutes restriction for conditioning reasons given he only returned the bubble fairly recently.

In his 15 minutes of action, Zion 13 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the floor. He didn’t contribute on the glass, and was -16 in his limited action. Were any of this a normal experience, Williamson would’ve been on the floor in the final seconds of a very close defeat against Utah. At this juncture, every game counts double, with the Pelicans fighting to remain in either the No. 8 or No. 9 spots to qualify for a playoff play-in game.

So why did Alvin Gentry sit Zion Williamson in the closing seconds?

That’s a little more complicated. When asked postgame, Gentry simply claimed that Williamson had already hit his minutes limit, meaning Zion had nothing left to give them, per the medical staff.

“We wish we could have played Zion down the stretch. But he had used the minutes that had been given to us. That’s just the way it is. We weren’t going to stick him back out there. Our medical team said we played for us to play him,” Genty said, per ESPN NBA reporter Andrew Lopez.

Knowing just how serious the Pels are taking Williamson’s minutes restriction, a natural follow-up question is why Gentry and New Orleans didn’t leave themselves some leeway late. Instead, they were forced to leave Zion on the bench when they needed him most.

Even with the emergence of Brandon Ingram this season, having another threat on the floor like Williamson in the closing seconds would’ve been very valuable in a game decided by one possession. Instead, the Duke product watched from the bench while Utah got the W.