Both forms of the Phoenix Suns against inferior opponents showed themselves in their 126-117 win over the Brooklyn Nets on Monday.
The Suns (26-17) are now 12-2 against the 10 teams that are currently not in a play-in spot or better, clinical levels of taking care of business. With that, however, Phoenix does tend to go through stretches of those games in playing down to its competition.
That didn’t matter to much on Monday with the way the Suns performed offensively. They shot 57% and made 20 3s for a 51% knockdown rate from deep.
The Nets (12-29) are, for all intents and purposes, tanking. With Monday serving as the second game of a back-to-back, they ripped one straight out of the playbook by sitting a handful of guys that played on Sunday, as well as playing a few that sat that previous night. Cam Thomas (left hamstring injury), Egor Demin (left plantar fascia), Day’Ron Sharpe (illness) and Haywood Highsmith (right knee) were all out, with those first three names all participating for Sunday’s loss in Chicago.
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In December, Brooklyn went 7-4, showing serious progress defensively. With an admittedly tough hand of three back-to-backs in the first three weeks of January, it has sat at least four key rotation players for one of those two contests in each swing.
The Suns looked ready to make light work of this ahead of Tuesday’s matchup in Philadelphia that should include Jalen Green. Phoenix went up 15 within nine minutes, but then began struggling with dribble penetration like it has all season. Seventy-one percent shooting to score 40 points covered that up.
That flow of play stayed consistent in the second quarter, and the Suns’ mistake-prone defense flared up more prominently. Brooklyn swiftly took advantage of that. The Nets went on a 15-2 run in the last 1:59 of the half to only trail by four, erasing all of Phoenix’s hard work and a tell-tale sign of a severe mental lapse.
At that point, Brooklyn was shooting 55% from the field and 48% from 3 with 16 assists and three turnovers. Considering the Nets entered play 29th in turnover percentage, that last number is the most damning, even though there wasn’t much of the Suns’ energy on defense that indicated they were being outright lazy.
Meaning, if the Suns kept at it, they were going to pull away eventually.
It took a while in the third quarter but they extended their lead back to 16 late in the period. The defensive intensity found one more gear to go up, holding Brooklyn to 21 points in the third quarter after it produced 42 in the second.
Brooklyn, though, had one more wave of shot-making left in ’em and the Suns couldn’t relocate that defensive gear. It is somewhat ironic considering that is how the Suns themselves play when trailing for the majority of the game, in that they always seemingly have another run to make.
Phoenix was up 16 with nine minutes left before an 11-0 Nets spurt forced the Suns to knock down a few more shots. They did just that, with a pair of 3-pointers from Royce O’Neale and Dillon Brooks’ sixth triple of the evening getting them back up nine with over 90 seconds left.
Brooks had 21 points in the last two games combined while battling an illness, 10 less than any other two-game spurt this season, per Stathead. He cleaned that up quickly, reaching that figure in just one game and then some with 27 points on Monday. He also got his 14th technical foul, and considering how this one was more of an elongated conversation prior to the whistle, it doesn’t stand a strong chance of getting rescinded. That would put him two away from a suspension.
This was likely Collin Gillespie’s last start until injuries pop up once more and he made the most of it with 22 points, five assists and one turnover. Grayson Allen will likely be that “fifth starter” now and he has been rolling since returning from injury, with his 14 points on Monday making it 18.4 PPG in his last seven games. He added eight assists.
Brooklyn finished with 51% shooting from the field via 28 assists and eight turnovers. A lot of it was shot-making from the Nets that won’t repeat but it’s a bad blip for Phoenix defensively.
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