Zion Williamson dealing with finger injury during Pelicans’ playoff push

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Zion Williamson’s long-awaited first playoff push with the New Orleans Pelicans won’t be pain free.

Williamson injured a finger on his shooting hand while blocking a shot shortly before halftime of New Orleans’ 117-108 loss to Orlando on Wednesday night.

“Just banged it against the backboard really hard,” Williamson said.

Williamson kept playing after the injury, but not without heading to the locker room to have it examined. The last of his 15 points came on a dunk in the fourth quarter, but he also sat out the game’s final seven-plus minutes.

“I’m not sure exactly what the diagnosis is. I’m hoping he’s OK,” said Pelicans coach Willie Green, whose team already was without high-scoring wing Brandon Ingram because of a bone bruise in his left knee.

Williamson wouldn’t say whether he thought he could have played more in the fourth quarter.

“I don’t want to dive too deep into that question because I don’t want to say anything that’s not right,” Williamson said. “I’m going to get it looked at and go from there.”

With six games remaining, the Pelicans have a tenuous hold on sixth place in the Western Conference. They entered Thursday’s action just a half game ahead of seventh-place Sacramento. Only the top six seeds in each conference advance directly to the NBA playoffs and avoid a play-in involving teams that finish seventh through 10th.

The stretch run looked promising enough, though, as long as Williamson could avoid the type of health issues that sidelined him for much of his first four seasons.