Early this morning, the Suns officially announced that the main defender Booker had a strain on his right hamstring and the return date was undecided.
According to team insiders, Booker is unlikely to play in series G3 and G4, and may even miss the entire first round.
Judging from the regular season record, when Booker was on the floor, the Suns had a winning percentage of more than 80%, and when Booker was not on the floor, the Suns had a win rate of more than 70%, and a decline of about 10% of the shooting rate was acceptable.
In other words, even if Booker is injured, the Suns' system is still here, and it will not collapse directly.
But for the Pelicans, Booker's injury gave them a glimmer of life.
Yesterday, a skill jun once said that the playoffs are different from the regular season, the regular season, no one wants to target you, lose and lose, all be a training, playoffs, as long as you have a shortcoming exposed, you may be targeted to death.
During this period, the pressure on the brothers was not small, and when Booker was injured, his responsibility would be shared among the other main forces, and this sudden increase in pressure was likely to become the last straw that overwhelmed the camel. Resulted in injuries to other players.
This is also why if one person in the team is injured, there is often a wave of injuries.
On the other hand, without Booker's core big daddy, can he really fight with the Pelicans? That's a problem.
From the perspective of winning percentage alone, Wuburi is bigger than the Pelicans, but in basketball games, it is impossible to look at the probability alone.
Take yesterday, the Suns did not have a qualified front line to keep an eye on the Warbler Song, so the Warbler Song suddenly transformed into the Emperor, and even evolved into the English Rand;
You can't imagine that CJ has been low-key for so many years, and now here comes the Pelicans, and has become an extremely reliable candidate for key shots.
It's also important that we know, and they know, that the Pelicans, led by Valanciunas, can easily burst the Suns' inner line.
G1, the Pelicans rebounded 20 more than the Suns; G2, the Pelicans rebounded 10 more than the Suns, and the more rebounds they picked, the more room for error.
Under this circumstance, this round of playoffs, which was originally regarded as the biggest gap in strength, suddenly had suspense.
Next, let's see what kind of surprise Paul can bring to us by personally leading the team.
By the way, the pelicans have drunk the northwest wind for so many years, and this year can be regarded as catching up.
What's the point of catching up?
On the one hand, the internal improvement of the team, Ingram's body and technology are approaching maturity, and the obvious weaknesses mentioned earlier are being corrected one by one;
On the one hand, the transaction is done well, CJ This transaction, when it first happened, many people thought it was foolish, who knew that this person was like a tree, and the moving land was stronger than before.
The pelicans have found the treasure, and the two big brothers have gone all the way and led the team forward to kill.
On the one hand, competitors have suffered repeated injuries.
First of all, the Lakers, if Zhan Mei remains healthy, he is actually quite competitive in the playoffs, but unfortunately he did not meet;
Then there is the Clippers, George has a hard time making a comeback, who knows the play-offs triggered a safety agreement, tragically isolated and failed to play. Then there is the Suns, the first in the league, which hurt their own head card in a playoff, and gave the Pelicans a glimmer of life.
Orioles spent five years not making the playoffs in exchange for this year's good luck.
This season of strength and luck will probably be the beginning of Ingram's rise. Of course, it is also possible to become another ghost under the 37-year-old cannon, who loses and who wins, and then walk and see.