Coming out of a timeout, Paul George had just been served in a quarter of the field, facing Keon Ellis. Guerschon Yabusele came to set a screen for his winger and… the trap closed on “PG”. The latter, caught by his defender as well as Domantas Sabonis, dribbled but moved away from the circle.
The two-hander worked so well that Paul George found himself at the halfway line. Suffocated, he tried to find Eric Gordon alone under the basket, a ball easily intercepted by Trey Lyles. This marvel of a two-hander came three minutes before the end of the match went poorly for the locals. A few seconds before this interception, the Kings were still trailing by 9 points (98-107).
Faults to give
“ During a timeout, I challenged them to do three stops in a row. Luke (Loucks, his assistant) suggested doing double takes because I think we had two fouls to make and we had one left in the last two minutes, which allowed us to continue to be super aggressive “, reports Doug Christie.
“ We wanted to keep doing what we were doing, keep making stops and at this point we could even be too aggressive for the next 90 seconds “, confirms De'Aaron Fox pointing out that on the other side of the court, the Kings looked to attack Paul George with his five fouls. The latter, who only took one shot in the 4th, ended up receiving his 6th foul a few seconds from the end.
After the two-handed hold mentioned above, the Californians were going to reproduce this model on the following possession: “PG” still drowned, the Sixers were penalized with a 24-second violation. A few seconds later, DeMar DeRozan stole a ball from Tyrese Maxey before going on the counterattack. The same DeRozan will intercept the ball on his friend Kyle Lowry's throw-in in the final seconds.
Tyrese Maxey blames himself
Enough to earn the veteran rear the title of “ best defender » of the evening reports Doug Christie, whose team contained the Sixers to 18 points in the last quarter (33-18). “ I'm super proud of our guys, it's the type of fight we expect night after night. 18 points for them in the fourth quarter, it's not going to happen every night, but that's what we're aiming for », greets the coach.
18 points and not a single one in the last three minutes and thirty seconds of the game. “ We couldn't score. They stopped us from doing everything we wanted to do. It's mostly my fault, so I have to do better in the end “, blames Tyrese Maxey. Carried by this defense and a fiery De'Aaron Fox in the final, the Californians signed a 15-0 to close the debates.
“ Experiencing this effort is huge and everything I had imagined. I'm a big foodie so I want more. I'm aggressive by nature, that's what I want to see from them. We may not be the strongest when you look at the very good defenses in the league, but we can always do something », Finishes Doug Christie.
| Shots | Rebounds | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | MJ | Min | Shots | 3pts | L.F. | Off | Def | Early | Pd | Bp | Int | Ct | Party | Pts |
| De'aaron Fox | 33 | 37.2 | 48.4 | 32.5 | 80.1 | 1.1 | 3.9 | 5.1 | 6.3 | 3.4 | 1.6 | 0.3 | 2.8 | 26.5 |
| Domantas Sabonis | 30 | 35.5 | 59.5 | 42.3 | 78.6 | 3.7 | 9.9 | 13.6 | 6.1 | 2.8 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 3.5 | 20.8 |
| Demar Derozan | 28 | 35.2 | 48.9 | 30.5 | 85.5 | 0.6 | 3.3 | 3.9 | 3.9 | 1.5 | 1.4 | 0.4 | 2.1 | 20.6 |
| Malik Monk | 26 | 30.1 | 43.4 | 34.9 | 85.9 | 0.3 | 3.5 | 3.7 | 4.8 | 1.9 | 0.8 | 0.6 | 2.4 | 15.8 |
| Keegan Murray | 32 | 35.5 | 41.3 | 28.6 | 87.2 | 2.2 | 5.2 | 7.4 | 1.4 | 1.0 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 2.9 | 11.6 |
| Kevin Huerter | 29 | 25.1 | 42.9 | 30.9 | 69.6 | 0.4 | 3.0 | 3.4 | 2.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 2.1 | 9.4 |
| Trey Lyles | 23 | 20.0 | 38.6 | 35.6 | 76.0 | 1.0 | 3.1 | 4.1 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 1.4 | 6.5 |
| Keon Ellis | 31 | 19.7 | 46.7 | 42.3 | 86.1 | 0.7 | 1.5 | 2.3 | 1.0 | 0.8 | 1.2 | 0.8 | 1.8 | 6.5 |
| Doug McDermott | 22 | 9.1 | 42.0 | 40.7 | 60.0 | 0.1 | 0.6 | 0.7 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.9 | 3.9 |
| Isaac Jones | 21 | 8.3 | 66.7 | 25.0 | 55.0 | 0.5 | 1.0 | 1.5 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 0.4 | 1.0 | 3.6 |
| Jae Crowder | 6 | 14.8 | 35.3 | 25.0 | 83.3 | 1.0 | 1.8 | 2.8 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 1.7 | 3.3 |
| Jordan McLaughlin | 23 | 7.2 | 38.5 | 39.1 | 71.4 | 0.1 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 2.1 |
| Orlando Robinson | 8 | 6.3 | 40.0 | 20.0 | 50.0 | 0.4 | 1.1 | 1.5 | 1.1 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.8 | 2.0 |
| Alex Len | 25 | 7.3 | 51.5 | 0.0 | 54.5 | 0.6 | 1.3 | 2.0 | 0.9 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.6 | 0.9 | 1.6 |
| Colby Jones | 22 | 5.4 | 41.7 | 44.4 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.6 | 0.9 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.6 | 1.1 |
| Mason Jones | 3 | 4.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 1.0 | 1.3 | 2.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.0 |
| Isaiah Crawford | 2 | 3.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.0 |
