The fans cheered for Stevens, but Stevens looked at Tang Tian, who had just left the court.

Only he knew that Tang Tian was the real behind-the-scenes hero.

Tang Tian saw Stevens' expression, smiled, and reached out to give him a high-five.

His expression was natural; he didn't care about these things.

The two sides on the court began to make substitutions one after another.

On the Pelicans' side, Stevens replaced Jokic with McGee seven minutes into the game.

When the substitutions were in full swing, he put Jokic back on the court, along with Dinwiddie, Stephenson, Bojan, and Aminu.

On the Mavericks' side, Butler led the team, along with Jennings, Devin Harris, David Lee, and Pachulia.

Butler's breakthrough jump shot gave the Mavericks two points, narrowing the gap to 13 points.

But back on the other end, Jokic facilitated from the high post, assisting Bojan for a three-pointer.

Jennings's layup was interfered with by Aminu. Back on the other end, Jokic continued to orchestrate, and Dinwiddie's cut to the basket drew a foul from Lee.

Tang Tian and Stevens' earlier discussions were right.

After Tang Tian increased his ball-handling percentage, Jokic's organizing ability was inevitably weakened in the starting lineup.

This was somewhat of a waste.

But by adjusting his rotation time and letting him lead the bench lineup, all of that waste was made up for.

During this stretch, the Pelicans' substitutes played like ducks to water.

In the last possession of the first quarter, the Mavericks defended the Pelicans' other players to death. After seeing this, Jokic turned and went straight to the basket.

After shaking Pachulia dizzy with a series of footwork moves under the basket, his buzzer-beating bank shot went in smoothly.

40 to 20, the game was over in one quarter.

The emotions of the fans in the arena were unusually excited.

This was supposed to be the first seed against the eighth seed!

The last game was just an accident!

The Mavericks had a strong roster on paper, but a black eight?

It simply wasn't going to happen!

In the second quarter, this situation continued.

Jokic realized that playing Pachulia in the first quarter was easier than he thought, and he made several shots in a row in the second quarter.

Pachulia had a lot of brute strength, but he had nowhere to use it in front of Jokic.

In less than two minutes into the quarter, the point difference was already approaching 30 points.

Carlisle called a timeout, but it was useless.

Not only Carlisle, but even Stevens didn't expect such a scene.

Tang Tian was chatting and laughing with Davis; they probably wouldn't have to play for the rest of the second half.

But at this moment, Jokic fell down while on offense, and then got up and tangled with Pachulia.

No one knew what happened, but Jokic was a little emotional.

The game went into a timeout, and Tang Tian and Davis went forward to communicate with Jokic.

Jokic was shy and rarely acted like this.

The replay of the previous play was shown on the big LED screen in the arena. It turned out that Pachulia was trying to put his foot under him again!

Thanks to Ariza being targeted before, Jokic had a premonition and dodged it, but it also caused him to lose his balance and fall.

The referee's ruling hadn't come out yet, but there was a heated argument on the Mavericks' bench.

It turned out to be Butler and Pachulia.

Nowitzki and Carlisle were trying to control the situation.

At this moment, the referee announced the penalty.

Jokic received a technical foul for pushing.

And Pachulia was assessed a Flagrant Foul 2 and was ejected from the game.

Obviously, after the previous incident where Ariza was targeted, the referees increased the penalty in order to avoid the situation from worsening.

With Pachulia ejected, the argument on the Mavericks' bench ended.

"Hey, hey, remember what I said?"

O'Neal laughed triumphantly in front of Barkley and Smith again.

He had said that Tang Tian's punch was worth it when Ariza was targeted before.

Now the referee's ruling proved that what he said was right.

Barkley and Smith could only laugh.

O'Neal was very animated during this segment, but they couldn't do anything about it, because what O'Neal said was really true.

The conflict caused a brief stop in the game, and when both sides returned to the court, their form had declined somewhat.

The point difference between the two sides fluctuated around 25 points. At the end of the first half, the Pelicans led the Mavericks by a large margin of 71 to 48.

A 23-point difference was big, but there was still a chance to fight.

During the half-time break, both teams returned to the locker room.

The atmosphere in the Mavericks' locker room was strange. Butler scolded Pachulia on the spot because of Tang Tian, which made the other teammates' attitudes towards him very subtle.

But Butler had that kind of personality; he always defended his brothers face-to-face.

"Zaza did wrong. Put yourself in his shoes, I wouldn't want my teammates to encounter that kind of thing, so I hope that doesn't happen again. We want to win, but not in this way, but to win fairly."

In the end, Nowitzki stood up and said something to gradually restore the atmosphere to normal.

But it could be clearly felt that there was already a layer of estrangement between the Mavericks players and Butler.

Returning for the second half, Butler took the lead, stealing the ball from Ariza and scoring on a fast break layup. Immediately after, he assisted Nowitzki in hitting a three-pointer.

Under the leadership of Butler and Nowitzki, the Mavericks launched a crazy counterattack in the second half.

In the first quarter, the Pelicans' defensive value exceeded the Mavericks' offensive value, and that critical point was not broken.

But in this quarter, the situation was reversed, and the Pelicans' defensive rotations couldn't keep up with the Mavericks.

The Mavericks scored 39 to 28 in this quarter alone, narrowing the point difference to 14 points.

The point difference was still there, but it was much smaller.

Compared to the first game, the Mavericks were doing better.

And the person leading the way was Butler, who had 15 points, 3 assists, and 3 steals in this quarter.

After angrily scolding Pachulia, he used practical actions to show how to win the game in the right way.

The last quarter of the game was extremely intense. Whether it was the Pelicans' connecting segment or the return of the main players, the point difference between the two sides fluctuated between 10 and 14 points.

However, the hole that the Mavericks dug in front was too big, and Tang Tian's consecutive scores at critical moments prevented them from narrowing the point difference any further.

In the end, the Pelicans still defeated the Mavericks at home by a score of 123 to 111, achieving a 2-0 lead in the playoffs.

Butler had a game-high 35 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, and 4 steals, and Nowitzki also had 23 points.

The two combined for 58 points, but Harris and Embiid performed generally.

Playing against the Pelicans, that was obviously not enough.

On the Pelicans' side, Tang Tian had a team-high 32 points, 8 rebounds, and 8 assists, including 13 points in the final quarter.

Davis had 17 points, 15 rebounds, and 4 blocks, and Jokic had a triple-double performance of 22 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists, which was also the first triple-double of his playoff career.

"We need to play harder, we are not without a chance."

Butler said directly to the media at the post-match press conference.

His words were recognized by the reporters. In terms of net points, the Mavericks won in the second half.

Although being down 0-2 made them very passive, if they could continue to play like that, they had a chance to start a comeback from their home court.