1) Basketball became secondary Wednesday night, when the Pelicans learned prior to tip-off of their win over Utah that Ingrid Williams, the wife of former head coach Monty Williams, had died after being involved in a car accident. The Willamses have five children. Coincidentally, New Orleans (20-32) visits Oklahoma City (39-14) tonight. Monty Williams is a first-year assistant coach for the Thunder. The game will be televised by TNT at 7 p.m. Central.
2) Watch postgame reaction to the tragedy from Alvin Gentry and Jrue Holiday.
3) Even before Monty Williams arrived to become head coach for New Orleans in 2010, it was well known that family was priority No. 1 for him (apologies for the quote marks and apostrophes missing throughout the article; that’s a technical issue which resulted from structural changes to NBA.com a few years ago).
4) It’s always family-first for the Williamses. The first thing Monty did when he walked out onto the Smoothie King Center prior to every New Orleans home game was wave to Ingrid and their five children in the stands. The couple also often brought the entire family with them to work at community events, such as this one before Christmas 2012 at the local Salvation Army.
5) Prior to Game 1 of last season’s playoffs at Golden State, family again was at the forefront of Monty Williams’ mind. He told reporters that his emotional reaction to clinching a playoff berth came partly from his youngest son’s presence at the Game 82 win over San Antonio. Micah went through a difficult delivery, with his father saying “he was close to losing his life.”