New Orleans — Brandon Ingram had a career night, leading the Pelicans to the 138-132 overtime win over the Jazz Thursday night. Ingram finished with 49 points– none bigger than the jumper he drilled with .2 seconds left in regulation. On the ensuing inbounds play for the Jazz, Jaxson Hayes was called for a foul under the basket, sending Rudy Gobert to the line where he made one of two free throws to send it to overtime. After the game, Head Coach Alvin Gentry and players reacted– or refrained rather– from reacting to the foul call:
“They didn’t say anything,” Gentry said. “They didn’t say anything.”
When a reporter asked what he thought of the call, Gentry responded:
“Will you pay the fine?” Gentry asked the reporter. “If you’ll pay the fine I’ll tell you exactly what I think of it. We’ve moved-on from it. I just know that I’ve been in the league 31 years and I’ll leave it at that.”
“We follow whatever the referees call and whatever they see,” Ingram said. “We just continue to play. I would have loved to have had that game winner in my book but I feel like another one is coming.”
The controversial call did not dampen the spirit in the locker room, as they were still able to come-out with the win, behind the best performance Ingram has ever had.
“All glory to God,” Ingram said after the game.”Thankful for the routine, thankful for being healthy and just continue to try to progress every single game. Every night is not going to be like this but continue to try to respond and fight through every challenge and put us in a really good position to try to win ball games.”
“To be honest with you it doesn’t surprise me that much,” Gentry said about BI’s performance. “I just think that the way he works and the way he’s gotten better and worked on his craft, sooner or later he was going to have a game like this.”
“For me it was more about slowing down,” Ingram said. “Slowing down and seeing whatever the defense gave me and trying to get the best shot for our team. I think a guy was under the basket wide open. I think it was Derrick Favors but I wanted to take the last shot.”
“He wants the ball in those situations,” Gentry said. “He said ‘Give me the ball and I’ll go get us a basket.’ We just tried to find a way to free him up so that we could get him the ball in a situation where they had a little space. The lane was crowded because Gobert just parked in the lane, and he was still able to get a shot off.”
“Since I’ve known him he’s been a confident person,” said Pelicans guard Lonzo Ball. “But I think this whole year he’s been on another level. Obviously he knows he’s our go-to guy on this team and we trust him.”
Not to be overlooked, Donovan Mitchell had nearly as impressive of a night, leading the Jazz with 46 points.
The Pelicans (16-26) have now won 4 of their last 5 games and return to action Saturday afternoon with at 2:30 p.m. tip-off against the Clippers. The game can be seen on WGNO.