Zion Williamson's NBA debut showcased a skill he said he had to work on while injured because he couldn't do anything else

Williamson's hot shooting from the outside, considered a weakness, surprised most observers, but he said after the game that spot-up shooting was all he could work on while he was injured.
If Williamson can mix his high-flying rim runs and outside shooting, he'll be even more promising as a future NBA star than expected.
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Zion Williamson produced fireworks in his regular-season NBA debut on Wednesday.

The much-hyped No. 1 pick in the draft, out since October recovering from surgery on a torn meniscus, scored 22 points on 8-of-11 shooting. At one point, he reeled off 17 straight points in the fourth quarter of the New Orleans Pelicans' 121-117 loss to the San Antonio Spurs.

Spectators hoping to get a glimpse of Williamson's gravity-defying dunks were instead treated to a different showcase: a barrage of three-pointers.

In his lone season at Duke, Williamson shot 33% from three-point range, a decent number, though hardly one to make opposing defenses fear him from beyond the arc. Entering the NBA, Williamson's lack of range was considered perhaps his biggest weakness.

But on Wednesday, Williamson went 4-of-4 from three, hitting all four over a three-minute period.

Asked about his shooting after the game, Williamson said that while injured, it was just about the only thing he could work on.

"When you're not able to move around, do athletic movements for a while, the only thing you can do is just shoot spot-up jumpers," Williamson said. "I guess that was a result of that."

Asked if he was in "the zone," he said, "I guess so."

Williamson's run ended almost as quickly as it began. The Pelicans didn't want to over-tax Williamson in his first game back, and the team medical staff told head coach Alvin Gentry to pull Williamson from the game with over five minutes remaining, despite his protests .

"It was very hard. I'm 19. Honestly, in that moment I'm not thinking about longevity, I'm thinking about winning that game," Williamson told reporters after the game ( via The Athletic's William Guillory ). "It was very tough. Me personally, I didn't want any restriction. But I'm not a doctor or trainer, so I just got to listen to them."

Pelicans Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations David Griffin told ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski after the game that he was glad to get Williamson's debut out of the way because he felt the team was on edge all night.

Indeed, outside of that two-minute stretch, Williamson looked out of sorts, fumbling the ball and deferring to teammates. Some of it was rust he hasn't played in three months and some of it was the Spurs' game plan.

Griffin told Wojnarowski that he considered Williamson's time away a blessing in disguise because it gave other players an opportunity to step up and the team time to focus on Williamson's conditioning and physical mechanics. What it may have also done is give Williamson more of an opportunity to work on other parts of his game. If he can mix his unstoppable rim runs with the outside shooting he showed on Wednesday, he'll be even more promising as a future NBA star.

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