Suns Strokes: Phoenix overcomes poor start to knock off Brooklyn Nets
Nov 13, 2014, 6:10 AM | Updated: 6:11 am
PHOENIX — As they say, it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.
The Suns had an awful start — falling behind by as many as 19 points in the first half — but finished strong, outscoring the visiting Brooklyn Nets, 63-41 in the second half, on the way to a 112-104 victory in front of an appreciative crowd of 15,184 at US Airways Center on Wednesday.
Isaiah Thomas and Gerald Green keyed the Suns’ largest come-from-behind win of the season with a combined 49 points off the bench.
Thomas scored 28, while Green added 21.
The two had performed a similar type of heroics just three days earlier, rescuing the Suns from a 13-point deficit against then-undefeated Golden State on Sunday.
“We can’t keep putting ourselves in this position because we’re not going to be able to come back every time,” Thomas said.
The win snapped a five-game losing streak to the Nets, which had all five starters score in double figures, led by ex-Suns star Joe Johnson’s 21 points.
THE GOOD
Green scored 10 straight points in a 2:10 stretch of the second quarter. He finished with 18 of the Suns’ 32 points, going 4-of-10 from the field, including 2-of-6 from 3 and 8-of-9 from the foul line. His play helped the Suns trim a 19-point deficit to single digits.
Eric Bledsoe’s three-pointer at 4:45 of the third quarter completed the Suns’ comeback from 19 points down, tying the game at 67. Almost four minutes later, Alex Len hit a 14-foot jumper to give the Suns a 78-77 lead, their first since 10:43 of the opening quarter.
Thomas scored 12 fourth quarter points in the final 4:48, including hitting all eight of his free throws. It was his fifth game with 20 or more points this season.
Down seven (90-83) with 8:12 to play, the Suns outscored the Nets, 29-14. Brooklyn missed 13 of its final 17 field goal attempts.
Over the last three games, Goran Dragic (18 points) is averaging 19.7 points after averaging 12.0 over his first five games.
The Suns outscored the Nets 19-6 in fastbreak points in the second half.
THE BAD
The Nets scored 12 unanswered points, part of a 23-7 run that put them up 29-13 with 2:18 to play in the first quarter, a quarter in which Brooklyn shot 70.6 percent (12-of-17, including 3-of-3 from 3). The Suns, meanwhile, shot 36.8 percent, missing 12 of their 19 attempts, plus turned the ball over six times — three times by Bledsoe — leading to 11 Nets points.
The Nets’ first half lead was twice cut to seven in the second quarter only to see Brook Lopez answer with four straight points and seven straight points, respectively.
The Nets scored a Suns opponent season-high 63 points in the first half thanks to 70.6 percent (24-of-34, including 5-of-9 from 3) shooting.
The Nets closed the third quarter on a 7-0 run after the Suns had taken a 78-77 lead with 51.9 remaining.
Bledsoe sat the final 14 minutes. He finished with 11 points and seven turnovers in 23 minutes.
STAT OF THE GAME
27.5: The Nets’ second half shooting percentage, missing 29 of 40 field goal attempts
HE SAID IT
“Our intensity,” Green said of what changed in the second half. “We were starting out flat the first half. We’ve been doing that lately. We got to get out of that, but I really am encouraged on how we did that in the second half. We picked up the intensity, we were denying the ball, being more physical, rebounding at the glass. We got to do that for 48 minutes every game.”
NOTED
In the fourth quarter of the Suns’ last two games, they have outscored their opponent by a combined 34 points (70-36) with Green (26) and Thomas (27) alone outscoring the other team by a combined 17 points (53-36)
During a second quarter timeout, the Suns recognized 2014 Curt Gowdy Award winner Joe Gilmartin, who was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame back in August
The game saw three sets of brothers on the court as in addition to the Suns’ brother pairings of Marcus and Markieff Morris and Goran and Zoran Dragic, Suns center Miles Plumlee faced younger sibling and Nets forward/center Mason Plumlee for the third time in their NBA careers
UP NEXT
The Suns close out the five-game homestand by hosting the Charlotte Hornets (3-5) on Friday, November 14. Tip off is scheduled for 7 p.m. with pregame coverage beginning 30 minutes earlier on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM.
The Suns have won five straight games in the series, including both meetings in each of the last two seasons. However, this is the first meeting since the Charlotte franchise changed its name from the Bobcats in the offseason.
