With this six-game winning streak, the Dallas Mavericks instantly rushed to fifth place in the West. And the gold content of this wave of winning streaks is very high, in addition to the Thunder and Rockets are really weak teams, the Lone Rangers' other opponents all have playoff and even championship strength, not to mention that they also broke the Chicago Bulls and Golden State Warriors at home. However, the Lone Ranger has always been like this over the years, every time they are looked down upon by the outside world, the Lone Ranger begins to rebound strongly and successfully punches the face; on the contrary, once it enters the tailwind game, the Lone Ranger inexplicably pulls across, and this time they lost miserably to the New York Knicks on the road.
Not to mention that the momentum is booming, the overall strength of the Lone Ranger is slightly better than that of the Knicks, and as a result, in their home stadium Madison Garden Square, the Knicks punched hard, and the Lone Ranger had no ability to fight back. The decisive factor in the victory or defeat of this game is that the gap between the two sides is too large, the Knicks starters Taljuulius Randall and Mitchell Robinson jointly cut 36 points and 22 rebounds, once you take the bag and assist defense, it is bound to mean that there is a big empty opportunity outside the three-point line, and the Knicks are so combined inside and outside.
You should know that Knicks big forward Randle has fallen off a cliff since he got the new contract, and it seems that after achieving his life goals, Randle has begun to paddle. This season's Knicks' poor record is directly related to Randall's poor form, many times he looks at the data OK, but it is simply a black hole of ball power, and the phenomenon of not passing on the court, offensive walking, defending and watching the other side go to the basket is endless, and the outside teammates such as Kemba Walker and Fournier are very uncomfortable, almost suspected of a locker room tumor. But this game Randall can be said to be so powerful that he almost swallowed several of the Lone Ranger's interior players alive, he slashed a quasi-triple-double of 17 points, 12 rebounds and 8 assists, and the plus-minus of +29 is the highest of all the players who have appeared. We always say that everyone has to eat dumplings, but the lone ranger should also think that any opponent or player may erupt when facing himself, which obviously needs to be reflected.
As Randall's interior partner, Mitchell Robinson played a career masterpiece. In the 2018 draft, in fact, the Lone Rangers had the opportunity to choose Mitchell Robinson, but they did not do so, so Mitchell Robinson against the Lone Rangers, should also have more motivation to express themselves. In this game, he shot 9 of 10, frantically cut 19 points, 10 rebounds and 2 blocks, and the offensive end staged various violent dunks, and the defensive side was like an iron gate that could not be opened, making the lone ranger suffer a lot.
Look at the Lone Ranger side, this game they sent four inside players, but it is simply a pit. Powell signed the Lone Ranger's contract with the Lone Ranger in the summer of 2019 for an early 30 million using dollars, which was a bit of a premium at the time, and as a result, Powell suffered a severe Achilles tendon tear in the 19-20 season, which was a thunderbolt for a player like him who pays attention to mobility. The fact is also the case, this season Powell's annual salary reached 10.18 million, in the lone ranger team is also in the forefront, the result as a starting center, he can not stop the other side of the inside line, not to say, he only got 4 points and 2 rebounds, but also 2 mistakes and 2 fouls, the coaching staff can't help it, and finally only used Powell for 17 minutes, which shows that he is still quite disappointed.
Another of the Lone Rangers' starting interior linemen is Maxi Kléber, also in the summer of 2019, the Lone Rangers renewed his four-year, $37 million contract with him, although not too expensive, but because of the ups and downs of Kléber's two seasons, the salary of 8.43 million is not cheap. In this game, Kléber had 9 points and 5 rebounds, and his main problem was that the offensive end was all about the three-pointer feeling, the end of the basket was unstable, and the deterrent on the defensive end was not as good as before, so he became a tasteless and unfortunate chicken rib type player.
The Lone Ranger last summer, by handling Josh Richardson, also got youngster Moses Brown, who has good athletic ability and an annual salary of only $1.7 million, which would have been highly anticipated. But Moses Brown is really naïve, and in the past two games he has only symbolically played 3 minutes and has not scored a single point. It obviously takes a long time to train Moses Brown, and the Lone Ranger probably doesn't have as much patience to wait for him to grow.
Among the players on the inside, it was Chris who brought more surprises to the ten-day short contract. But with him as the main substitute, Chris is still good, let him and the other side's main force hard, Chris is also unable to do it. Against the Knicks, Chris scored six points, but the defensive end could not stop the opponent at all, so he only got 7 minutes of playing time. So the lone ranger invested more than $20 million a year in these four insiders, but with little success. This does not take into account the top salary of Porzingis, although the latter is trustworthy in health, but the attendance and stability are too worrying, the inside line is like a thousand holes, and the lone ranger wants to break through the first round of the playoffs.