The regular season has entered the final sprint stage, and perhaps everyone will be surprised to find that the Miami Heat can be described as the top of the list in the entire East, neither the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks, nor the popular Philadelphia 76ers or the Brooklyn Nets. After Nickers rival the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Miami Heat secured their position at the top of the Eastern Conference and gradually opened up the gap with the team behind them.
In this era of superstar groups, the Miami Heat, who have tasted the sweetness more than once, are more pragmatic, the whole team is not in the superstar of the current year, although Kyle Lowry, Jimmy Butler and Bamb Adebayo are also mini big three, and there are former All-Star guard Oladipo, but the Heat are still team combat, and the star taste is slightly bleak. In the game against the Cavaliers, the Heat once again showed the power of team basketball, everyone on the court performed their duties, taking the starting forward PJ Tucker, if you only look at the technical statistics after the game, Tucker shot 1 of 6 in the whole game, 4 shots outside the three-point line, only 2 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists. But his plus-minus of +18 is the highest of all the players in the two teams, which shows that Tucker's role on the field is difficult to reflect through data, and the function is multifaceted.
As a second-round pick in 2006, PJ Tucker, like most players with lower picks, had a rough start in his career. He played only 17 games for the Raptors in his rookie season, and then he was abandoned, and no other NBA team would give him a chance, so PJ Tucker chose to go to the Europa League to develop, leaving his footprints in multiple countries, and it was a full six years. It wasn't until the 12-13 PJ Tucker returned to the NBA stage, he joined the Phoenix Suns, with his own efforts to become the team's main rotation player, and showed extremely tough defense, the second half of the 16-17 season PJ Tucker was sent back to his old club Toronto Raptors, and played the playoffs with the team for the first time in his career.
PJ Tucker switched to the Houston Rockets in the summer of 2017, and it was from that time that the public learned more about him. It should be remembered that at that time, the Raptors offered PJ Tucker a three-year, $33 million contract extension, but he did not accept it, but signed a new contract worth $32 million for 4 years with the Houston Rockets. There are two main reasons for making this choice, first of all, PJ Tucker and Chris Paul are very good friends, and the latter just joined the Rockets at that time, it can be said that Paul's recruitment to a certain extent prompted Tucker to come to Space City. Tucker, on the other hand, admits that he thinks the Rockets have a great chance to compete for the championship, and the atmosphere in the dressing room looks very good, so he hopes to achieve his dream here.
But everything backfired, although the Rockets had a good record in those seasons, they always missed the championship, and the 17-18 Western Conference Finals Rockets had already led 3-2, but Chris Paul's hamstring in the Battle of King's Mountain directly led to the Rockets being reversed by the Warriors and being blocked out of the Finals. In the 18-19 season, Chris Paul's body did not fully recover, resulting in a much worse state than before, and the Rockets were eliminated by the Warriors for the second consecutive year. Tucker has been working hard during this time, and although many times his data seems very flat, he can almost cover up the dirty work. On the offensive end, he didn't play much, but he was the player with the most three points in the league hit the bottom corner, the defensive end was simply everywhere, and when the Rockets played the small ball lineup, Tucker, who was only 1.98 meters tall, even had to go to the cameo center, it was indeed difficult for him. And in the three full seasons that the Rockets played, Tucker has not missed a single game, and as a veteran who has entered the twilight of his career, it is a rare thing.
However, due to the continuous hate in the playoffs, the Rockets star James Harden could not stand it, and he asked the management to send him away, which also heralded the Rockets' official reconstruction period. Tucker is naturally also helpless, knowing that Chris Paul, who recruited him, was sold by the Rockets as early as the previous year, and then James Harden is leaving, and the management does not seem to be ready to renew Tucker's contract, so it is difficult to avoid the two sides parting ways. So before the deadline of last season, the Rockets sent Tucker to the Milwaukee Bucks, the ending is happy, don't look at tucker data is still very ordinary, but it plays a huge role in the defensive end, and finally helped the Bucks win the championship, he finally realized his dream, and the Rockets also got the draft picks and other assets in return.
Tucker signed a two-year contract with the Heat last summer, and clearly saw the Bucks' success, and the Heat management also understood that the role of this blue-collar veteran for the team could not be ignored. After joining the Heat, Tucker basically sat in the starting position, and so far this season he has averaged 8.2 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game, shooting nearly 50% from the field and 43.4% from three-point range. I'm afraid no one would have thought that tucker, who is already 36 years old, is still one of the best 3D strikers in the league, and this tough and still hot veteran may be needed by all championship teams.