This season, the Suns achieved unprecedented success in the regular season. After several waves of winning streaks of more than 10 games, they secured the first place in the league early and won a team record of 64 wins and 18 losses.
In terms of personal performance, Paul’s performance has reached the perfect level. Throughout the season, Paul averaged 10.8 assists per game and became the league’s assists leader for the fifth time in his career. Under his connection, the young teammates around him are still making continuous progress, and Devin Booker even entered the category of MVP discussions at the end of the season.
The Suns had some trouble in the first round of the series. Booker’s sudden injury in G2 put the Suns in a scoring bottleneck for a time. However, since then, Paul’s outbreak has successfully helped the team to tide over the difficulties. Throughout the series, Paul scored 19 points twice in the final quarter to save the team. In the crucial promotion battle, he even hit 14 of 14 and scored 33 points, setting a record in NBA playoff history. What’s even more gratifying is that in that game, the Suns also ushered in Booker’s comeback.
The Lone Ranger has also made considerable progress this season. Under the remodeling of Coach Kidd, the team’s potential has been further tapped. Especially after the mid-season big trade, Porzingis left and Dinwiddie and others joined in, making the Mavericks’ lineup more flexible and more balanced in offense and defense. In the regular season, they won the fourth place in the West.
As the leading star, Doncic experienced a slow heat at the beginning of the season, but when the time comes to 2022, his state has gradually recovered, and his output has also increased to the level of an MVP star. The fly in the ointment is that at the end of the regular season, he was accidentally injured and missed three first-round playoff games. But this episode did not affect Doncic. After his return in the first round of G4, Doncic gradually recovered his inspiration for personal projection and organizational connection. After eliminating the Jazz, Doncic finally made the playoffs for the first time in his career.
The Suns are a recognized dual-core team. However, under Paul’s series and guidance, this team does not stick to the ball. They place great emphasis on quick offense and defense, quick sharing of the ball, and quick transfer of the ball. In the regular season, the team averaged It ranks fourth in the league in offensive efficiency and ranks in the top five in assists per game. These two data fully prove the outstanding teamwork of the Suns.
On the contrary, the Lone Ranger’s offensive operation is closely linked to Doncic’s personal state. In the regular season, Luka’s 37.4% possession rate per game ranks first among all players in the league. Although, during the season, Kidd also tried to let Bronson hold the ball to share some pressure on Luka, and also achieved good results, but at the critical moment, it was still the tactical normal for Doncic to manipulate the entire offensive system. This season, the Mavericks are only 25th in the league in assists, proving that they are not a team that shares the ball well.
As the two best and smartest ball handlers in active service, Doncic and Paul are both top masters in predicting each other’s tactics. The future series will definitely evolve into a round of pre-judgment and anti-pre-judgment. A complex game of tricks.
Throughout history, the Mavericks and the Suns have played against each other 168 times in the regular season, and the Mavericks are at a disadvantage with 74 wins and 94 losses. In the playoffs, the two teams met a total of 2 times, and each team won once. However, specific to this season, the Lone Ranger and the Suns have lost all three matches, and the disadvantage is still quite obvious. (Poirot)Return to Sohu, see more
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