After just 3 wins and 16 losses in the first 19 games of the season, everyone thinks that this season's Pelicans will once again enter a rotten mode, competing side by side with the Rockets and Thunder for the title.
But after the chaos of the opening season, the Pelicans have gradually gotten on track, from 3 wins and 16 losses to the current 15 wins and 26 losses, although still thirteenth in the West, but only 1.5 wins away from the Blazers in the play-off position.
The Pelicans began to win games on a steady basis, largely thanks to Ingram's gradual recovery from injuries and his final finding of his place on the court and adapting to the new manager's system.
Yesterday's Pelicans' win over the Timberwolves was a last-minute three-point strike by Ingram that helped them win their 15th win of the season. In 32 games Ingram has played this season, the Pelicans have won 14.
At the moment of the kill, Ingram made a false move to break into the inner line and shake Okoji to get the position of the ball, Varan's pass came in time, Ingram received the ball decisively, Okoji's defense was fast enough, but the ball still drew a perfect arc and fell into the basket.
Graham began to raise his arms in celebration the moment Ingram struck, in his words: "When he struck, I put my hands up because I already knew the ball was going to go in. ”
Because before making that shot, Ingram had already scored two three-pointers, one of which was in response to Edwards' 3+1. Hanako scored 20 points at the end of yesterday, but the song also had 10 points at the end of the song, all focused on the most critical final minutes of the game.
In the game, Ingram shot 11-of-19 and had 33 points, 9 assists and 4 rebounds. Compared to the game that scored 40 points in early December but lost to the Rockets, this game is ingram's masterpiece of the season.
Although ingram was carrying the team throughout the game, Ingram attributed the victory to his teammates after the game: "They have always been my bright light, every time they come to the field, let me continue to participate in the game and show my ability." 」 ”
Humility and low profile have always been labels on Ingram, but sometimes such a personality has its drawbacks, especially in the NBA, a fiercely competitive Colosseum.
The Pelicans have played a lot of key games this season, but there have been very few games where Ingram has stepped up to take over the game like yesterday. Instead, newcomer Graham threw a lot of key balls and two more kills.
The Pelicans regrouped their backcourt combination last summer, sending away Bledsoe and The Ball, but apparently the Walker + Graham combination is not as good as before, with one of the two shooting 37.1% and one 37.2%.
Although Graham scored a lot of key goals, most of the time, he was the one who squandered the ball on the field and then hit the iron. If the ball brother hadn't been replaced by Graham, the Pelicans probably wouldn't have had as many key balls to play.
So this season, in the case of the Fat Tiger not playing, Ingram averaged only 0.6 more shots per game than last season, his ball holding and demolition ratio was declining, and the singles rounds were also decreasing, and there were more no-ball rounds.
In this environment, Ingram still averaged 22.9 points, 6.1 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game, and the number of assists and rebounds was a career high, and it seemed that it was only one step away from entering the All-Star.
So we found that after the Fat Tiger missed half a season, and maybe even continued to miss a whole season, the Pelicans didn't have such a bad life, and Ingram's excellent performance made the fans forget about the Fat Tiger for a while.
The train is driving forward, life is to look forward, the station passed and the final terminal station are not important, what is important is the scenery along the way and the people on the car.