In last season's Western Conference Finals, the Clippers faced the core player Leonard's injured Clippers, still fought with their opponents for six games before finally reaching the Finals, which is why they were reluctant to meet the Clippers again this season, and the Clippers' performance in the playoffs did disappoint fans, losing two consecutive games to the Timberwolves and Pelicans, completely missing the playoffs, and the Suns met the Pelicans in the first round, which was also regarded as a better opponent! But after the team's core Booker was accidentally injured, the Suns' promotion prospects became less optimistic, and even the possibility of being staged by the opponent to stage a black eight miracle, the third game relied on Paul's last quarter of the storm, they won the game to take a big lead again, the fourth game is still sitting at home Pelicans, from the beginning showed the inevitable momentum, the first half and the First Western Conference stalemate battle is not at all behind, the third quarter under the leadership of Ingram to play an offensive climax, In one fell swoop, he established a double-digit lead and finally defeated the Suns 118-103 to equalize the series again!
As the Suns' first offensive strength, Booker's absence has caused the overall offensive quality of the Suns to decline by a notch, without his restraint on the offensive end, other players are difficult to get the same big open shot opportunities as before, which also increases the difficulty of Paul combing the overall attack of the whole team with passes, and also needs to take on more scoring responsibilities.
But after the last big storm led the team to play a triumphant song, the Pelicans put a huge pressure on Paul on the defensive end of this game, from the first quarter onwards to continuously exhaust his physical strength through physical confrontation, this strategy also achieved the expected effect, the whole game allowed Paul in the 34.6 minutes of his appearance, 8 shots only hit 2 goals, only 4 points, 2 rebounds, 11 assists and 2 steals, and also had 3 turnovers, which is a huge gap from his last performance under the gods, St. Paul became Iron Paul
In the case that Paul's personal performance is far from meeting expectations, the Suns can be at a slight disadvantage in the final quarter, inseparable from the contribution of the Pelicans backcourt core McCollum, this game McCollum in the case of poor shooting feel, still crazy shots 21 times, only hit 8 goals, of which the three-point shot is only 9 shots 2 performance, only got 18 points, 9 rebounds and 2 assists, can be said to be forced to give the right to die.
In the case of McCollum's poor performance, Ingram became the savior of the team, and with no solution to the singles ability, Ingram became a nightmare on the defensive end of the Suns, hitting 11 goals in 23 shots in the 36.3 minutes of his debut, cutting 30 points, 4 rebounds and 5 assists, successfully defending his home stadium!
After winning this game, the Suns and pelicans drew 2-2, which is undoubtedly a situation that the Pelicans would prefer to see, after all, compared with the Suns with Paul, they have a clear advantage in physical fitness, and the longer the series is played, the more confident the Pelicans will become, and the probability of the Black Eight miracle will naturally be greater, and the fifth key battle of Tennoyama will become the turning point of this series, which team can laugh to the end, let's wait and see!