Earl Watson, Suns players react after 48-point loss in season opener
Oct 18, 2017, 10:44 PM | Updated: Oct 19, 2017, 11:29 am
Players on the Phoenix Suns' bench watch during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Portland Trail Blazers, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2017, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)
(AP Photo/Matt York)
Fifty-eight.
At one point, the Phoenix Suns were trailing the Portland Trail Blazers by 58 points.
On a night filled with optimism and excitement for the upcoming year, the Suns ended thoughts of either by the end of the season opener Wednesday, losing 124-76. The 48-point margin of defeat that came on a night in which the franchise started its 50th season is the worst in franchise history.
“Surprised? I don’t even have to tell you surprised. Embarrassed is much more of the word,” Watson said of the loss after the game. “You come in here and you represent something. This is basketball, this is a gift.”
Watson said the team had “a lack of almost everything strategically” when the wheels started to come off in the second quarter.
“We can’t use age as an excuse,” Watson said. “Portland came in here and they just basically kicked our butts as bad as they could.”
The Suns shot 31.5 percent, were outrebounded by 24 and registered only 10 assists.
“I don’t think I led the guys tonight,” Eric Bledsoe said after the game.
“That’s bad leadership out there on my part so I gotta do better next game,” he said.
Bledsoe shot 5-of-18, finishing with 15 points, five rebounds, three assists, two steals and five turnovers.
Watson said he couldn’t repeat what he said to his team after the game.
“We have to bounce back,” Watson said. “This is 81 more games.”
If there were any ways to make matters worse for such a humiliating loss, Portland was without C.J. McCollum, their second-best player, due to a one-game suspension.
“Very disappointed,” Devin Booker said of the loss. “We’ve been working really hard as a team and then we go out there and we don’t compete. We just got our (expletive) kicked from the beginning to the end. That was a reality check for us. We gotta bounce back, come in tomorrow — luckily it was worth only one loss, it felt like five.”
BOOKER LEAVES GAME
Booker left the game in the mid-third quarter with cramps and did not return. He said it was in both legs after the game.
Booker had trainers looking at him a handful of times before hobbling off to the bench at that point in the game.
He finished with 12 points, five rebounds, two assists and two steals in 27 minutes.
