Suns lose focus against depleted Nets in poor home loss

PHOENIX — We’ve all had those days at the office when we’re mentally checked out the day before going on vacation or celebrating a holiday, and that sure looked like what we saw from the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday in a 127-117 loss to the Brooklyn Nets.

The Nets were undoubtedly playing harder and with more physicality, on top of the clear edge in mental connectivity. Even as one of the NBA’s worst defensive teams down a handful of rotation players, Brooklyn was picking up Suns players early down the floor and getting inside their jerseys. In terms of the opposition, that is a complete 180 from the effort they faced the night prior versus the Los Angeles Lakers, and the inability to adjust was clear.

“You have to come in with the same mindset every game,” Suns guard Devin Booker said. “Had a big win yesterday, came in a little flat, gave them life and they took advantage of it.”

Phoenix wasn’t totally sleepwalking through this one but it was unable to take care of the ball and defend at a high enough level to not give the Nets a handful of freebies around the rim or from 3 in the first half. Giving an inferior opponent in the NBA that much runway to build up steam is a recipe for disaster, no matter who is on that roster.

“We all could feel it,” Suns forward Kevin Durant said of the Suns’ level of play in the first half. “It was a tie game but I just feel like we didn’t play good ball that first half. Like, solid ball. We didn’t play at the level, our standard that we hold ourselves to. … Once a young team gets some momentum and some confidence. … that energy just extends throughout the whole team.”

And once Brooklyn was getting in control of the game in the mid-third quarter, that’s when its confidence grew and it felt like the Suns were pressing.

“Too late, too late, too late I think. … They were playing really well, they executed, they got into our stuff a little bit defensively,” Suns guard Bradley Beal said. “We just didn’t retaliate on the defensive end. Offensively, we just played a little bit too slow.”

Two small windows of the third quarter that totaled five possessions painted a picture of how this night unfolded.

The Nets went on a 17-3 run to lead by 14 at that point before a slight push from the Suns cut the deficit to five. On Brooklyn’s next possession, it snagged an offensive rebound and then Dennis Schroder saved a potential back-court violation. As he moved back into play, he was inexplicably left open and drilled a 3. While Tyus Jones was bringing the ball up, Ziaire Williams stole it for a free transition bucket to put Brooklyn back up 10.

Then, with one second left on the clock in the third quarter and the Suns down 10, an attempted full-court touchdown pass to Durant went out of bounds, giving Brooklyn the ball back on the baseline by its hoop. Its ensuing play saw Tyrese Martin draw three free throws and hit two to put Brooklyn up a dozen going into the final frame.

Martin, a second-year player out of UConn, entered the night with 105 total minutes played in the NBA, 33 points and five 3-pointers. He doubled that total of triples in the first half alone, which feels like a, “What can ya do?” type of moment, except for the fact that Brooklyn was shooting 42.2% from 3-point range in its last nine games.

And as Durant and Booker always say, it’s the NBA. It doesn’t matter how out of nowhere a performance might seem. These guys are here for a reason.

Durant noted how they left Martin too open early in the game, and even though they gave him less airspace later on, his confidence was already rolling.

“After that it was too late,” Durant said.

Marin knocked down three more 3s in the fourth quarter to make it eight on the night and 30 points to put Brooklyn ahead by a game-high 18. Phoenix was unable to trim that to single digits the rest of the way.

While the Suns (10-7) were the team on a back-to-back, Wednesday begins a stretch for Brooklyn that it isn’t outlandish to say will define its season. Leading scorer Cam Thomas strained his left hamstring and will miss 3-4 weeks. Brooklyn is also without Bojan Bogdanovic (left foot), Nic Claxton (lower back injury management), Noah Clowney (left ankle sprain), Day’Ron Sharpe (left hamstring strain) and Jalen Wilson (illness), which is eventually too much of a talent discrepancy to overcome, especially while Thomas heals up.

And Brooklyn as it is sports a bottom-three roster in the NBA when it comes to talent.

Don’t tell them that, though. The Nets are now 9-10 and first-year head coach Jordi Fernandez has quietly done one of the best jobs in the NBA a quarter of the way into the season.

Without Thomas, Brooklyn will have to hope a committee approach works. Cam Johnson and Schroder are both having wonderful seasons but now it’s about how much random wings like Wilson and Williams can help maintain the production of a top-10 offense and compensate for one of the NBA’s worst defenses.

The Nets got that on Wednesday from Martin and others.

Ben Simmons, who is amazingly on a max contract while attempting to prove he still belongs in the league at all, scored eight of his 14 points in the first five minutes, which was the most he had in any quarter since January 2023, per Stathead. He also stuffed the stat sheet as usual with nine rebounds, eight assists and a steal.

All of this is to say that this was by far the Suns’ worst loss of the season, and for their sake, they would hope it doesn’t face any competition for that claim the rest of the way.

Schroder was excellent with 29 points, four rebounds and three assists. Johnson entered the night on an absolute tear shooting-wise, and despite not following up on that with a 3-for-11 mark, he was still very good in this one with 11 points, eight rebounds, two steals, a block and tied a career high for assists with six.

Trendon Watford added 18 points in 21 minutes off the bench. Durant pointed at the 48 combined points for Martin and Watford, plus his seven turnovers, as the difference in the game. He called his turnovers “bad ball” and said that he can’t turn the ball over that much and the Suns can’t give up that many points off the bench and expect to win.

The Nets were 18-of-42 (42.9%) from deep, but again, that was expected.

Beal had another good night, 8-of-14 shooting for 17 points, before tweaking his left ankle in the fourth quarter after stepping on someone else’s foot. He did not return after showing a notable limp. This was his second game back from a left calf strain that sidelined him for five games.

The nature of a back-to-back fresh off the absence had Beal listed as questionable coming into the night.

“I tweaked my ankle at the end of the game, calf was getting a little tight, kind of expected that on a back-to-back but I was just being a little bit smart about it,” Beal said of his exit.

Durant also tweaked his left ankle late in the game but seemed to think he’d be OK. These were also his first two games back from an absence.

Phoenix had 25 assists and 17 turnovers.

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