PHOENIX — Kevin Durant said the Suns’ 116-98 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday left him feeling embarrassed by the effort he and Phoenix put forth.
The Suns coughed up 22 turnovers as a team, which Minnesota turned into 40 points, a season-worst total for Phoenix.
“That’s the game. … That’s why we lost. It’s hard to overcome that,” Durant said postgame.
“It’s tough man. (Expletive) game, man,” he added. “We didn’t play up to our standards at all. We embarrassed the fans, we embarrassed ourselves the way we played and I want us to be better.”
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After the Suns had built up a 23-12 lead early with clearly more urgency than the T-Wolves on both ends, Devin Booker turned it over three straight times, all on ill-advised passes.
He tallied three more turnovers before it went final, and Durant finished with four. Bradley Beal chipped in four himself, all while Minnesota finished with none of its players having more than two turns.
Head coach Mike Budenholzer and Booker both said Minnesota’s physical and active defense cornered Phoenix into poor play.
“Their defensive activity, their hands, their deflections, their weak-side kind of activity swarming the ball, and it just led to a lot of easy baskets,” Budenholzer said. “But we just, we didn’t take care of the ball.”
“They picked up the physicality, and we didn’t respond well to it,” Booker later added. “I think a big part of it is our spacing out of it and being organized and, you know, five guys being on the same page instead of two or three, or even four doesn’t cut it.”
Booker said what was ultimately most frustrating was an inability to match the physicality Minnesota brought to the table.
Durant believes Phoenix is perfectly capable of neutralizing physical defenses, as long as it plays fast and decisive while focusing on going north and south, rather than east and west.
“When adversity hits, we just start floating a little bit as a team,” Durant said. “And you know, that’s tough to deal with. So it’s frustrating for sure, losing the game that way.
“It felt like we started off nice. We had solid momentum, and then we just lost it there (toward the) end of the first. And then they kind of control the game from there.”
The forward says he doesn’t look at the standings or the Suns’ play-in chances, instead focusing on “the next day” and “the next practice.”
It eerily hangs over the club nevertheless, and the loss means Phoenix (28-33) now sits four games behind the Dallas Mavericks for the No. 10 spot in the Western Conference standings with 21 games remaining.
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