Zion Williamson out for play-in game vs. Kings due to left hamstring injury

If the New Orleans Pelicans are going to advance out of the play-in, they will have to do it without Zion Williamson.

Williamson is sidelined with a left hamstring injury and is out for Friday night's win-or-go-home play-in game against the Kings, a story broken by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN and since confirmed by the team.

Williamson will be re-evaluated in two weeks, which means if the Pelicans advance to face the Thunder they will need to play much of that series without Zion as well.

This is devastating news — Zion's body once again betrayed him after he had been playing the best basketball of his life in recent weeks. After the Pelicans were embarrassed by the Lakers in the In-Season Tournament semi-finals, Zion became more focused, dropped a reported 25 pounds, and coach Willie Green leaned into him with more of a point-forward role. The result was that after the All-Star break, he averaged 23.7 points per game on 54.7% shooting, with 6.3 rebounds and 5.3 assists a game.

This injury is to Zion's left hamstring, while his issues last season were with his right leg.

The injury occurred after Zion had sparked a comeback from 18 down to tie the play-in game with the Lakers at 95-95, but when he landed after a little floater in the lane he knew he had tweaked something and motioned to exit the game.

The Pelicans swept the season series from the Kings and will host Friday's play-in game against a Sacramento squad that is also shorthanded (shooting guards Kevin Huerter and Malik Monk are out for the season). However, winning this critical game without Zion will be difficult. New Orleans will need Brandon Ingram — who made his own return from injury against the Lakers and was benched in the fourth quarter by coach Willie Green — to step up big, plus Trey Murphy III and CJ McCollum will need to rain down 3s.

The winner of that game will fly to Oklahoma City to take on the Thunder starting Sunday.