The NBA regular season ended a focus battle today, with the Western Conference's two finalists, the Suns and the Trail Blazers meeting in a narrow way. In the end, after four hard quarters of fighting, the Suns lost 105-134 to the Blazers, eating their second defeat of the season. The Blazers, on the other hand, won their first game since the start of the game. In this game, Booker and McCollum played against each other, and both of them exploded with 20+ points. Lillard also scored 19 points, while Paul Ayton didn't play well, and the two combined contributed only 12 points. Looking at today's game, the Suns lost by 29 points, while before playing the Lakers, they once had a 35-point advantage. Fans can only sigh: the sun is really a wrong step, only lakers James take you as a brother.
In terms of strength, the Suns and pacers are on par, and the Suns' lineup is slightly superior, after all, they reached the Finals last season. The Blazers played at home in this game, and they gave the Suns a downside as soon as they came up, leading 30-24 in the first quarter and winning 14 points 37-23 in the second quarter. By halftime, the Blazers had already won as many as 20 points over the Suns. In the second half, the Suns tried to launch a counterattack in the third quarter, but their firepower was not as fierce as their opponents, and they still fell behind 34-39 in the single quarter. The fourth quarter was almost garbage time, and the Blazers won 4 more points 28-24 to end up with a big win.
Take a look at the data of the main players of both teams. Trail Blazers: CJ McCollum 28 points and 3 rebounds; Damian Lillard 19 points and 8 assists; Norman Powell 16 points; Anfine Simmons 18 points and 3 rebounds; Nasir Little 11 points and 7 rebounds; Yusuf Nurkic 9 points and 12 rebounds.
Suns: Devin Booker 21 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists; Mikaar Bridges 14 points; Javier McGee 12 points and 4 rebounds; Elfrid Payton 10 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists; Chris Paul 4 points and 11 assists.
As last season's Western Conference champions, the Suns seemed a bit drifty after the start of the season. In the first game, when they faced the Nuggets, they once led by a large score, and finally they were reversed by their opponents and encountered a black opening. In the second game, they faced the Lakers, who were also in a bad situation, and at one point led the opponent by as many as 35 points, and finally won only 10 points. Facing the Blazers in this game, they were suppressed all the time, and every quarter was won by the opponent, and finally suffered a fiasco. Paul was in poor shape today, playing 24 minutes, 2-of-5 and 0-of-2 from three-point range and only got a pitiful 4 points. And what is the data of his playing the Lakers? That's right, 25 points and 14 assists! The performances in the two games are simply worlds apart. In addition to Paul, Ayton also played poorly, playing 26 minutes, shooting 3 of 6, making 2 of 4 free throws, scoring 8 points and grabbing 3 rebounds.
Paul's plus-minus today is -29, Ayton's plus-minus is -23, and the two have the lowest plus-minus on the whole game. The Suns have not been able to reach a contract extension with Ayton this summer, which is really a big mistake at present. After the Suns and Ayton's renewed contract talks collapsed, Ayton refused media interviews twice in a row, and his performance on the field was much lower than last season. In this year's 3 games, Ayton's performance was not as good as one, he could still get 15 points against the Nuggets in the first game, and he scored 8 points against the Lakers in the second game, but grabbed 15 rebounds. In today's game, not only could he not score points, but he couldn't even grab rebounds.
Without renewing Ayton's contract, the Suns made a wrong step by step, not only did they have a poor record, but their boss also faced trouble that they might be accused of "racial discrimination", which is really a wrong step. The Suns performed so poorly that only Lakers James still put their core Paul and their general manager James Jones as brothers. In the last game, James led the Lakers to send charcoal to the Suns, allowing the Suns to avoid the embarrassment of losing 3 consecutive games, and also letting Paul and Jones breathe a sigh of relief. So do you think the Suns can still rush out of the West this season? Can Paul still get Ayton back in shape? Let's wait and see!