On April 28, Beijing time, the NBA's new round of playoffs all came to an end, the Lakers refused to be swept, and G4 repelled the Nuggets with difficulty to rewrite the series score to 1-3.
It is worth mentioning that in several playoffs in the West today, in addition to the Lakers' refusal to go out, the Pelicans have become another team that has suffered 0-3 after the Lakers and Suns. And unlike the Lakers and Suns, the Pelicans lost three games in a row, except for G1, the other two games were lost by a large score, and G2 lost 30+, which exposed that the two teams have an insurmountable gap in absolute strength.
For the Pelicans, however, their bad news is far from over. If the Lakers G4 can rely on Zhan Mei's strong outburst to win back a city, and the Suns can choose to believe again that the Big Three will bring a victory to Phoenix, then the New Orleans may not be so lucky, they don't see any hope in the Pelicans, especially the star Zion who has been reluctant to come back, and even threatened that only if the Pelicans break through the first round, he will choose to return at some point in the playoffs, and now he needs to leave the team for treatment to recover from a leg strain.
According to the American media, Zion refused to come back in the first round of the playoffs against the Thunder due to a hamstring strain, because hamstring strain requires a long recovery period to fully recover. To be honest, saying this kind of thing to Zion at this juncture is almost equivalent to "surrendering the gun", and it is no different from taking the initiative to reimburse the season, because a discerning person can see at a glance that the Pelicans without Zion have no way to defeat the Thunder, let alone reaching the semifinals to buy time for Zion, how to avoid being swept by the Thunder has become a problem.
Moreover, this is not the first time that Zion has refused to play, citing injuries. Back in last season's play-offs, Zion also refused to play, citing leg discomfort, sitting neatly on the bench holding up a waiver card and watching the team's entire regular season efforts undone. To be sure, as a top star in the league and the absolute core of a team, Zion lacks the leadership temperament of Maddie and Griffin who would rather play closed than fight with injuries to help the team, which is the fundamental reason why he has been unable to break through the playoffs all these years.
The most critical thing is that as early as the summer of 2022, the Pelicans signed a 5-year $193 million contract extension with Zion, thinking that with the blessing of the maximum salary, Zion would perform exceptionally hard, after all, the team has paired him with the Big Three lineup of Ingram + McCollum, but as long as Zion can ensure his health, the Pelicans are definitely a championship dark horse in the West that no one can ignore. But the ideal is very beautiful, the reality is very cruel, Zion does have strength, and he also led the Pelicans to the fourth place in the West this season, but when the team needed him the most, his old mistake was committed again, such irresponsible behavior, the Pelicans are afraid that the intestines will regret giving him such a big garbage contract in the NBA prematurely.