Suns hold on against Kings for ‘funky’ win to make it 5 straight

We all know that Phoenix Suns team from last year is somewhere inside this year’s version of the squad. We have seen signs of it more and more during what is now a five-game winning streak after a 109-104 victory over the Sacramento Kings on Monday night.

The overarching theme of the season so far, however, has been consistency. And more so, a consistent effort across 48 minutes.

Remember head coach Monty Williams’ rant last season after an 8-8 opening to the season? It’s along those lines.

Now, this is already painting a darker picture than this game deserves. For three quarters, the Suns played good basketball, and they were tremendous in the third. It’s a win, and they are suddenly 6-3.

But after going up 22 points with a period left to play, they took their foot off the gas and nearly fumbled away the win to a team that had just played the night before.

“We just have to be better. I told our guys that,” head coach Monty Williams said of the end product. “We feel kind of funky about a win like that. We’re not giving it back, we’ve got to learn from it.”

It was at the 5:29 mark when it became clear Phoenix’s bench was spiraling and wasn’t going to stop a last-ditch effort by the Kings’ top players that had cut the deficit down to 15.

To be clear, the Kings looked lifeless in the third quarter and their head coach Luke Walton seemingly turned down clear-cut opportunities to call timeouts as a standard attempt to try and wake his team back up. Sacramento couldn’t stop turning the ball over, amounting to 24 on the night for an absolutely ridiculous 38 Suns points.

They recovered from that, though, and Williams got his starters back in up 13 with 4:51 remaining.

But that’s not as simple of a solution as it sounds to hold the door. Williams made the smart point postgame that he usually brings that group back in earlier, so at that point, he’s subbing them in cold.

The starters couldn’t re-establish a rhythm or stop the bleeding.

Devin Booker, a starter for just about his entire career, complimented the ability for bench players to come in after sitting for so long and said it’s not an easy thing to do. He admitted he himself at least shut down a bit physically on the bench, thinking the game was going to be over.

“It’s a rare situation,” he said. “It doesn’t happen that often but it’s tough … It’s something starters definitely aren’t used to. It’s a talent, it’s a skill to be able to go straight cold from the bench to being locked in on the court.”

A 9-0 Kings run over the next two minutes and change had it a five-point ball game, also adding up to just seven points for the Suns in the first 9:45 of the fourth quarter.

Phoenix kept stumbling. But speaking of someone’s footing, Devin Booker’s drawn charge with 1:12 left overturned a transition bucket originally called an and-one opportunity that kept Phoenix’s lead at five, one of the biggest plays of the game.

After Jae Crowder missed a good look from the corner, Booker fouled Sacramento’s De’Aaron Fox with 35 seconds left, only for Fox to miss both free throws.

The math checked out for the game to be pretty much over from there, but Chris Paul was stripped of the ball with 15 seconds remaining and that led to a Kings transition basket with 9.7 seconds left.

Booker was fouled up three, and then he too missed two free tosses.

Sacramento finally had a brief opening after a monstrous effort on tired legs and then proceeded to turn it over on the inbounds pass. That left Paul with the free throws in a three-point affair, and this time, someone made them. He converted on both, icing the game at five seconds left.

Those first three quarters resembled a familiar theme of last year in the wear-down effect the Suns’ play would have on the opposition. Booker spoke unprompted on that effect, citing the Kings playing the night before and seeing that on them a bit in the third quarter.

While the first half defensive effort from both teams was nothing more than average, the Suns shot 57% and matched a strong scoring start for the Kings to lead by three at the half.

It felt like one of the best shots Sacramento had to offer, and predictably, that led to a 31-12 onslaught from the Suns in the third quarter. That was built on Phoenix turning it up defensively. Williams said it was 11 deflections alone in that quarter compared to 10 in the first half.

“That was a fun stretch,” Booker said. “Just using our length, using our athleticism and getting out in transition.”

The biggest change in impact Phoenix got was from the point guard position.

In the last five games, Chris Paul had attempted a total of eight shots in the first quarter.

This is nothing new, as he likes to feel the game out and let his teammates find a flow before he starts to attack more in the next period. But there was a clear switch in aggression from him out of the gates.

Paul was 4-of-6 in his six minutes played for that opening quarter, scoring nine of his 16 points.

His backup, Cam Payne, had his best game of the year.

Payne in Saturday’s win looked like he needed some time to get his feet under him after missing five games due to a right hamstring strain, but I guess he only needed two days. He tied his career high with 24 points in 22 minutes.

“I saw the Cam Payne that we’re used to … He had a good offensive game going,” Williams said. “Ths shot-making was there, the penetration to the lane was there, you can see him getting his burst back.”

It was one of those nights where Mikal Bridges was a constant presence all over the floor. He was huge in that third quarter and registered 16 points, two rebounds, an assist, two steals and two blocks for the game.

Booker added 18 points, six assists, two steals and nine rebounds, continuing his spike in snagging those up.

Excuse me? pic.twitter.com/pGXNLIGRCQ

— Kellan Olson (@KellanOlson) November 9, 2021

His season average is now at 6.1 per game, far above his previous career best of 4.5. It was something Booker did more of in the postseason, and it looks like that’s carrying over, something we could potentially file under another notch for his continuous year-to-year improvement.

Follow @KellanOlson