The final Democratic debate ahead of next week’s New Hampshire primary bore many of the hallmarks of those that preceded it: Joe Biden continued to lie about Iraq and his nonexistent involvement in the Civil Rights Movement; pundits loved Amy Klobuchar; both Hillary Clinton and Michael Bloomberg got airtime even though neither was on the stage; and several of the moderators were openly hostile to Bernie Sanders.

All told, it was yet another one of those nights.

But as the race heads toward another critical contest in a few days’ time, one of the unspoken structuring dynamics was undoubtedly the aftermath of last week’s Iowa caucus — which saw Pete Buttigieg outperform Biden and Warren, and a victory for Sanders. Sanders’s de facto emergence as the race’s front-runner, coupled with Buttigieg’s palpable determination to become the default anti-Sanders choice, made some kind of clash all but inevitable, and when the moment finally came, it went much as you’d expect.