After five road games in nine days, Suns look out of sorts in loss to Nets
Nov 6, 2017, 11:09 PM | Updated: Nov 7, 2017, 12:07 am
Phoenix Suns center Alex Len, from left, guard Troy Daniels, forward Josh Jackson and guard Devin Booker sit on the bench in the closing moments of a loss to the Brooklyn Nets during the second half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Nov. 6, 2017, in Phoenix. The Nets defeated the Suns 98-92. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
PHOENIX — The Phoenix Suns were playing their sixth game in 10 days Monday after a five-game road trip concluded Sunday night in San Antonio. It showed in a 98-92 loss to the Brooklyn Nets.
The second meeting of the season between the Suns and Nets was anything but a classic.
Both teams struggled to shoot the ball efficiently, take advantage of the other team’s mistakes and play defense without fouling. The two teams combined for 59 fouls.
One play in the fourth quarter summed up the night when the Nets committed four separate fouls on one possession.
As for the Suns, they could not make shots all night, shooting 34.9 percent from the field, the lowest mark for the team under interim coach Jay Triano.
“I thought we had pretty good looks early,” Triano said. “Give them credit, they challenged us well.”
All it would take was one slight breaking point, and a great fourth quarter from Nets point guard D’Angelo Russell was that. He had 13 of his 23 points and three of his eight assists in the final quarter.
“Usually in games like this on the schedule after a 10-day road trip and on a back-to-back it’s usually a schedule loss even though I thought we had a good opportunity to win,” forward Jared Dudley said after the game.
Mike James and T.J. Warren scored 23 combined points in the second half. After Booker scored 11 points in the opening seven minutes (including his second jumper that had him reach 3,000 career points), he finished with 18 total. He fouled out with 2:37 left in the game.
“We tried a bunch of different guys to see if we could get a bunch of different guys going and, yeah, it was tough to make shots,” Triano said.
One of those guys was the veteran forward Dudley, who is coming back from toe surgery and hasn’t played significant minutes this season.
“The one thing that he does is he moves the ball for us,” Triano said of Dudley. “He knows how to play, changes sides of the floor, he passes, he follows — I thought he was good as far as our spacing went and our ball movement.”
He played 21 minutes, finishing with six points, five rebounds and an assist.
Dudley said basketball for him is now less about stats and more about what he sees on the court, and it wasn’t pretty.
“What I saw out there was bad ball movement, no one talking on defense, and overall an intensity you have to have, especially on back-to-backs,” Dudley said.
Dudley mentioned the team will have trouble with consistency as a young team and the fact that the team has had under two full practices with Triano as the head coach.
A stagnant first half saw both teams trapped in major scoring ruts, leading to neither team having a major advantage despite the fact.
From the 5:37 mark of the first quarter to the 9:36 mark of the second quarter, the Suns had only three points — a three-pointer by Troy Daniels.
Brooklyn went on a 22-3 run in that time, leading by as many as 15 after an Allen Crabbe three-pointer.
Crabbe’s bucket however, and a technical free-throw by Spencer Dinwiddie would be the only four points the Nets scored over the course of nearly seven minutes in the second quarter. The Suns went on a 14-4 run during the stretch, putting them back in the game.
In those opening 24 minutes of basketball, the Suns shot 25.6 percent but only trailed 47-41.
The second half was more of the same, except there were no major runs for either team and the game up for grabs for both sides. In the fourth, the Suns couldn’t stop Russell in the pick-and-roll and were unable to answer in crunch time without Booker to pull out a home win.
UP NEXT
The Suns play game two of a six-game homestand against the Miami Heat on Wednesday. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:00 p.m., with pregame coverage beginning 30 minutes earlier on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station.
Prior to their game Monday night against the Golden State Warriors, Miami sits at a record of 4-5. Former Sun Goran Dragic is leading the team in scoring (19.3 points per game) and assists (4.9 per game).
Dragic was traded to Miami by the Suns, and included in that deal was the Heat’s 2018 protected first-round pick, which will go to Phoenix if it lands outside the top-seven.
