The recent Nets can be said to be a bit like riding in a Shandong car, first the big three came together and played a beautiful attack and defense, Durant and Harden are one who scored 27 points, one with 25 points, helping the Nets win the Bulls at the top of the Eastern Conference. But in the next round, they immediately changed a team, Irving did not play, Durant also directly rotated, only Harden single-handedly led the team, the result of a 21-point disadvantage lost to the Second-to-Last Thunder in the West, in the team's first scoring point competition, Harden also lost to Alexander by 7 points with 26 points and 33 points. The Thunder also slipped from second to third, successfully overtaken by the Heat. After such obvious ups and downs, Nash as the manager has also been criticized by the outside world. From Nash's face on the sidelines, we can also see his loss and helplessness. Therefore, in the new round of the game, how the Nets play well against the 12th-ranked Pelicans in the West and get rid of the losing streak is quite important.
Let's first look at which players Nash sent to start this campaign? Harden, Mills, Kessler Edwards, Durant and Sharp. The Pelicans' start consisted of Derwent Graham, Ingram, Josh Hart, Herbert Jones and Valanciunas. Jones will be directly opposite Durant. As soon as the game came up, Durant hit 2 points with a dry jumper to help the Nets open the record. Graham hit the same quick jumper, and both sides scored their first points in more than 40 seconds. Mills' three-pointer, Harden's consecutive inside offense and free throws stretched the score to 9-3. After four minutes of playing in the first quarter, Durant used free throws to help the team take an 11-6 lead. The Pelicans used Ingram's continuous inside line to maintain the momentum of chasing points. At the critical moment, Durant contributed key steals, and hit three points with Sharp, and after a wave of 10-0 consecutive points, another wave of 5-0 continued to help the Nets and establish an advantage on the court. However, there was a small interlude at the end of the quarter, and Durant's three-point timeout at the end of the first quarter was ruled invalid, and the original score on the court came to 35-22, and the double was changed to 32-22. He personally contributed 12 points in a single quarter.
In the second quarter of the game, Cameron Thomas helped the Nets score the first line, the Pelicans made consecutive mistakes or attacked fruitlessly, and the Nets continued to pull the point difference, but in 2 and a half minutes, the score of the two teams came to 41-22, and the Nets had led by as many as 19 points. The Nets also hit the Pelicans with a wave of 11-0 ahead of schedule. The big score behind also made the Pelicans players emotionally fluctuate, Josh Hart directly ate the technical prisoner, Harden free throw plus Sharp air dunk, so that the score between the two sides has reached 48-24, and in the blink of an eye, there is a 24-point difference between the two sides. Halfway through the second quarter, Harden's free throw brought the score to 52-27. Although Ingram played very tough on the field, he played iron continuously, and the whole team only scored 5 points in 6 minutes, which was also a bit of a surprise. However, with 5:44 left in the quarter, Durant was blocked by Bruce Brown, who was hit on his left knee and limped back into the locker room. The Nets played a bit of a mess during this phase, and the Pelicans seized the opportunity to narrow the point gap slightly. But the Nets quickly returned to normal with control, and Harden led his teammates to continue to expand the score. At halftime, the Nets were 69-41, with a 28-point advantage over the Pelicans. The team won 10 rebounds in the half, led 6 assists 17-11, and the Nets shot 18-of-60 of 32 on the two-point range, and the Nets also shot 8 of 16 on the three-point range, far exceeding the Pelicans' 18-of-5 shooting rate. In addition, the team had 5 double-doubles in the halftime, harden and Durant had 13 points, 5 rebounds, 11 assists and 12 points respectively. The Pelicans only Had Ingram score in double figures to score 13 points.
In the second half of the game, Harden, who left the game injured, had no intention of coming back. Herbert Jones helped the Pelicans hit a three-pointer first, and Sharp helped the Nets score on the inside with a layup. In the words of many fans, the Pelicans on the court, there is almost no tactics to speak of, more rely on personal offensive enthusiasm and personal ability, but this section, the Big Score Leading Nets are obviously a little loose, which also gives the Pelicans a chance to chase points, Ingram's dry jumper, Graham's counterattack layup to play 2+1, a wave of inside and outside lines blossomed, helping the Pelicans to play a small climax of 14-2, narrowing the point difference to 55-71. The re-tensioned Nets also took advantage of Mills' 2+1 opportunity to stabilize the situation again. Halfway through the quarter, the score came to 78-63. However, when the quarter was more than 8 minutes old, Harden also fell to the ground injured, but fortunately he quickly got up to continue the game, and as the Nets regained their concentration, they also re-opened the point difference to 87-69. However, the Pelicans' offensive form was clearly stimulated in this quarter, and by the end of the third quarter, the Nets had a 95-77 18-point lead.
In the fourth quarter of the game, Mills was fouled by Walker's outside line and won three free throws, his three-point shot from the outside line continued to help the Net score, Valanciunas' layup and supplementary basket, and then added a foul free throw to help the Pelicans maintain a state that would not obviously open the score. However, Harden was a steal and an outside three-pointer, and in 4 minutes, the Nets directly stopped the Pelicans, and the score on the court also came to 109-83. Watching the Nets play more and more steadily, 118-98, as their 20-point advantage was re-established, in the last two and a half minutes, the two teams successively changed lineups. The game ended with the two teams finally settling at 120-105, and the Nets won by 15 points.
Finally, let's look at the key player stats: the Nets' starting players all scored in double figures, and Thomas, who participated in the rotation, also scored 20+. Among them, Harden contributed a team-high 27 points, 8 rebounds and 15 assists, Mills also had 21 points, and Thomas had 20 points and 6 rebounds. Edwards contributed 16 points and six rebounds, and Sharp and Durant scored 12 points together, although Durant scored 12 points after only 12 minutes of playing. Although seven pelicans have double-doubles, only Ingram has contributed more than 20 points, with 22 points, 4 rebounds and 8 assists. Hart, Valanciunas, Jones, Graham, Walker and Hayes scored 14, 13, 13, 10, 10 and 11 points, respectively.