In the second match of this 2022 play-in tournament in the West, it was therefore the Pelicans of Willie Green who got the better of the Spurs of a Gregg Popovich who was perhaps coaching the last match of his career there. More talent, more gnaque and a boiling room, it was too much for the Texan youth who can harbor regrets regarding this match but who can still be proud of their season.
Louisiana bullfighting stats are right here!
They will have believed it, a little, but in the end the Spurs lost to a basketball team that was simply better than theirs. It is therefore difficult to have regrets this morning, because on closer inspection Willie Green’s troop has a real Playoffs team face, but that will have to be proven once more tomorrow evening at 4am once morest the Clippers. A match in which Zion Williamson will obviously not participate, who was seen slamming 360s before the match and then courtside during the meeting with a chain the size of the Vatican.
Meanwhile, Zion… https://t.co/QbOYmLXhl4
— TrashTalk (@TrashTalk_fr) April 14, 2022
I don’t have the words for this channel… pic.twitter.com/tTsnSOZ3NY
— TrashTalk (@TrashTalk_fr) April 14, 2022
But back to basketball. Game of the night? A victory without being too scared but not without effort, made possible first of all by a solid start to the match and carried by a Brandon Ingram very quickly in the bath, is that not Zach Collins.
Brandon Ingram said HELLO pic.twitter.com/gUX1JqJt4v
— TrashTalk (@TrashTalk_fr) April 14, 2022
First quarter to warm up, BI then CJ McCollum take things in hand in attack, logical, and opposite the Texans hold thanks to the outside shots of Devin Vassell, who confirms his great form of the moment and who presents himself as the offensive option number 1 for Spurs. Surprisingly, a little, but a logical observation given the small form of Keldon Johnson (0/7 on half-time shooting) and Dejounte Murray, next to his pink pumps before the break and very quickly in foul trouble so absent a very large part of the first half. Dejounte Murray who had already fired a blank last year during this same play-in with a damaging 4/17 once morest the Grizzlies, and who this morning adds a… 5/19 on his special play-off CV, not terrible but how want to the one who carried San Antonio on his shoulders so drawn all season. Lack of leaders therefore on the Spurs side, the return of Lonnie Walker IV is good because the bally tenure of the very young Josh Primo does not give much, while opposite the Pelicans see in the second quarter a CJ McCollum catch fire and join the locker room with 27 pawns at 10/12 shooting, thanks to an unsolvable all-time foootwork/wrist alloy for the Spurs defence. In attack it’s fun, in defense too because two men raise their voices in their part of the field, these gentlemen rookies Herb Jones and Jose Alvarado, intractable and terribly aggressive, the icing on the cake being that the two kids validate their excellent work by attack, in particular Jojo who slams three shots from the parking lot before blowing up the room on an action which sums up the second quarter quite well.
THE ATMOSPHERE pic.twitter.com/0ddMrkfWYD
— TrashTalk (@TrashTalk_fr) April 14, 2022
The Pelicans lead by 11 at halftime, Gregg Popovich perhaps slams the last speech of his career at halftime, a speech which has the effect of waking up… Jonas Valanciunas, let’s go, who in the third quarter turns into a kind of slow and slicked-back Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Jonas’s Lithuania invades Jakob Poeltl’s Austria who then takes an international sauce over five or six minutes, and very quickly the gap increases and seems to indicate that the match may be unofficially finished before the official time. The twenty pawns are brushed but San Antonio manages to pretend to stay in the match, not thanks to Dejounte Murray but rather by the reaction of Poeltl who finally resists the great jaundice, while Keldon Johnson has also muscled his game as a Robbie Pires, while Devin Vassell chained the long distance firecrackers. Unfortunately for the Texans but logically nonetheless, not enough solutions in attack for Pop, nobody to really take the leadand opposite the killers are not lacking and Herb Jones will take care of hardening the game until the end of the night while Brandon Ingram will pass for a house KD on multiple occasions.
The Smoothie King Center explodes, deserved victory and heading to Los Angeles on Friday night to face the Clippers for a place in the Playoffs. A match within the reach of William Vert’s men, but be careful, because the Californians have a different kind of experience opposite them. For the Spurs? It’s the official end of an amazing season, a record-breaking season for Gregg Popovich, an All-Star season for Dejounte Murray, but a season that heralds perhaps the franchise’s biggest turn in twenty- five years.
