NEW ORLEANS — Prior to Friday night, the week had not gone the way Brandon Ingram would have hoped.
As the New Orleans Pelicans forward attempted to come back from a bone bruise in his left knee, he had two subpar games as the Pelicans dropped the regular-season finale and the first play-in tournament game to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Ingram responded on Friday and as a result, the Pelicans are headed to the playoffs.
Behind a team-high 24 points from Ingram and an all-around defensive effort, the Pelicans defeated the Sacramento Kings 105-98 to advance to the playoffs as the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference. New Orleans will face the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday night.
“This was the goal at the beginning of the year,” Ingram said. “Throughout it, we had some injuries. We had different things happen. But we had another opportunity today and we came in and everybody contributed.”
Following Tuesday’s loss, during which he didn’t play the final seven-plus minutes, Ingram was in the Pelicans’ practice facility early Wednesday morning getting up shots and working his way back to find his form.
Ingram suffered the injury against the Orlando Magic on March 21 and sat out until the final game of the regular season on April 14. He said it was tough trying to find that rhythm early, but things clicked on Friday.
“It’s been one my healthiest seasons and I was out for three weeks just watching and just trying to stay disciplined,” Ingram said. “It’s hard just trying to stay disciplined, trying to stay locked in knowing I wanted to be out on the floor. I was losing some of my conditioning a little bit and just trying to stay ready.
“That was three weeks that passed, and I was just coming in and trying to play 30 minutes after all that and be locked in. I was, of course, hard on myself because I didn’t think it mattered that I just came off the knee injury. Those first two games didn’t go how I wanted to go, but I just wanted to give it all tonight and trust my teammates, trust my stuff and we ended up winning.”
One of Ingram’s defensive plays ended up being a turning point for New Orleans in the second quarter. After a rough start that included Sacramento scoring 11 points off Pelicans turnovers in the first quarter, New Orleans started to seize momentum in the second.
With 7:19 left in the quarter, the Kings got a fast break after another Pelicans turnover. Ingram ran back and fouled Harrison…
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