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In a battle between the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference and the No. 1 seed in the East Wednesday night, it wasn’t close. In a 111-90 road shellacking, the Phoenix Suns made the Miami Heat look like the team that was playing on the second night of a back-to-back, not the other way around.
Despite falling short in their second NBA Finals rematch with the Milwaukee Bucks to start the trip, the Suns bounced back by eking out a win over the Orlando Magic, punctuated by Ayton’s scoring, Landry Shamet’s hot shooting and Mikal Bridges’ game-saving block.
Wednesday’s game against an Eastern contender was nowhere near as exciting down the stretch, but it was off the charts in terms of how convincing and impressive the victory was. From Devin Booker’s first game back to Deandre Ayton’s surging offense, here are five observations from the road.
Booker only missed four games due to health and safety protocols, but with Chris Paul sidelined by his right thumb avulsion fracture, that absence felt like ages. Fortunately, the Suns were just fine in his absence, posting a 3-1 record that featured the highest of highs like Cam Johnson’s career-high 38 points and game-winning 3, and somewhat lower highs after coming up short against the Bucks.
For the first time in his career, Book had to endure a roller coaster week for the Suns from afar, all while dealing with the frustration of being asymptomatic but having to still be away from his teammates and basketball in general.
“I never got to be the guy that’s cursing out the TV screen and standing up and jumping around the house,” he said with a smile. “Even if you’re injured, you’re usually on the bench, so you’re not at the crib, and it was a new experience for me.”
During his time away, Booker found out what multiple Suns have discovered this season: The time off the court helped them see different areas where they could enhance their play upon returning.
“Just finding spots, seeing the pace,” he explained. “You get to see it at a whole different angle, even instead of watching film. Like, it’s different watching a full game at the house. So I knew I could be patient and come out here and not try to force anything, just make the right play. We have guys that can create and make plays for each other, so it makes it a lot easier.”
Normally when a prominent player misses a few games, there’s an adjustment period as guys have to find ways to make up for that lost production, followed by a readjustment when said player returns and tries to rediscover their rhythm. The Suns had no such problems in either respect on Wednesday.
“Book would expect us to come back and get to the subject quick, so we expected him to get to it quick,” Deandre Ayton said. “So there was no hiccups at all. Once we know Book is on the floor, it’s right back to reading him, iso spacing, if it’s a blitz — just stuff that the defense throw at him, we adjusted quickly.”
In his first game back, Booker finished with 23 points, 9 assists, 8 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 blocks in 33 minutes. He went 7-for-12 from the floor, 4-for-7 from 3-point range and was a game-high +31.
Suns coach Monty Williams said his near triple-double spoke volumes since Booker hadn’t played in about a week. In fact, he was only able to work out on Tuesday and then get up some shots with assistant coach Jarrett Jack Wednesday morning. Jack came back reporting that Book looked good, which carried over to the game.
“He’s just gifted, and I thought our team fed off of his, as they say, swag this morning in the meeting,” Williams said. “But then in the game, there was a level of calm because Book was out there. So that’s something that I certainly don’t take for granted.”
Booker’s stabilizing presence extends beyond the court, however, as the team was simply excited to get one of their guys back around the group again.
“They asked me [about getting Booker back] earlier today, and it was great just to have him here, you know?” Mikal Bridges said. “Doesn’t even matter about basketball, just having here as a friend and a teammate. He’s always teed up, so it’s always great to have him here.”
“That’s how our team goes though, that’s how we vibe with each other,” Booker added. “Even before the game, just seeing each other again, being around the energy, being around the aura is always a blessing to be a part of this, and it’s a lot of fun.”
As happy as that reunion probably felt for Booker and the Suns, Wednesday’s game wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. If anything, it was more like a bloodbath.
Early on, it felt like the Heat were cruising for a repeat performance of their 123-100 blowout win in Phoenix back in January, when they drilled 22 3-pointers, including eight from Duncan Robinson. Miami racked up 25 points in the first six minutes of the game, hitting nine of their first 12 shots and building a double-digit lead.
Williams called a timeout during that poor defensive start, and for the last 42 minutes of the game, the Suns turned it all the way up holding their opponent to 65 points on 26-of-76 shooting (34.2 percent). Monty called it one of the best defensive performances he’d ever seen.
“The ability to regroup without losing confidence is something that we’ve learned over time,” he said. “In our program, we always say we don’t want anything to affect the culture but also the spirit of our team. And I thought that was the case tonight.”
Submitting this type of performance on the road against an Eastern Conference contender would’ve been impressive enough. Doing it on the second night of a back-to-back, and in the final game of a three-game road trip? That was special.
“I wish I had something that I could tell you that was substantial and I had it down,” Williams replied when asked to explain this group’s competitive fire. “We have resilient guys. That’s something that we do talk about. We also say we just don’t let stuff affect the gym or the way we play or our spirit. Our guys like to hoop.”
For the Suns, closing out a road trip with a win has become part of their culture. Williams always jokes the “food doesn’t taste as good” and the “plane ride home seems longer” when they’re heading back home with a loss.
So instead of dealing with all that, they went out and manhandled the No. 1 team in the East to secure a playoff spot — not a play-in spot, but an outright playoff spot — with 16 games left in the season. They also improved to 21-0 when holding their opponent under 100 points and 40-0 when leading after three quarters.
“We wanted this one bad, to be completely honest,” Booker said. “We have a lot of respect for their team, especially for what they did to us in Phoenix….We just wanted to prove a point. They’re playing the best basketball over here in the East, and we’re doing the same in the West, so it was a heavyweight match.”
As always, the lesson remains: Just when you think the Phoenix Suns are on the ropes, watch out.
Cam Payne deserves his own deep-dive after the string of games he’s put together in Chris Paul’s absence, and rest assured, we’ll get to that here in the next week. But on a night where the Suns were already missing CP3 and Cam Johnson, and had just gotten Booker back, this team had to deal with yet another injury scare that nearly took the wind out of their sails.
In the third quarter, Payne attempted a 3, rolling his ankle over P.J. Tucker’s foot on the contest. It was the same one he injured in the playoffs last year.
“It was one of those plays, I don’t think it was malicious at all,” Williams said. “I just thought he kind of got under Cam a little bit. I didn’t see the replay, but it looked like he landed on his foot.”
When he went to the ground holding his ankle and wincing in pain, it was easy to assume the worst. Payne somehow stayed in the game and even blocked a shot on the next possession before subbing out and heading back to the locker room to get it examined.
Fortunately, a few minutes later, he could be seen back on the Suns’ sidelines, hopping around in an attempt to keep it loose. By the start of the fourth quarter, he was back on the floor.
“He did not want to leave the game,” Williams said. “When I saw him tying up his shoe tighter, that’s always a sign that a guy can play through it. We’ll see how he responds to the plane ride home, but I was proud of his level of toughness in that moment. We want guys to show that, we don’t want them to put themselves in harm’s way, but we certainly like when guys show that level of resiliency in those moments.”
Payne finished his night with 11 points and 10 assists. Though he only shot 4-for-13, his performance gave him his fifth career double-double — two straight, and three in the last four games.
“That’s what we said when Chris went out and not knowing I was gonna go out, that we have to take advantage of this time and just get better,” Booker said of Payne’s recent Point God imitation. “The ball’s gonna be in other people’s hands, other people are gonna have to get shots. We’re gonna create for each other and find different ways, and I think we’ve done a good job of that.”
Landry Shamet may not have been able to build on his recent heater, but Deandre Ayton had no problem doing so. Even with a few lackluster rebounding nights coming out of the All-Star break, his offense has been undeniable, with his last three games in particular standing out:
Over the road trip, DA averaged 23.3 points and 12.3 rebounds per game on 33-of-48 shooting (68.8 percent).
“He had a bit of a continuation from last night,” Williams said. “He had a ton of sacrificial dives tonight that opened it up for everybody. We were just trying to figure out if they were going to switch, if they were going to zone a lot or if they were going to be in coverage. They started out in the normal coverage, and I thought DA did a pretty good job with diving and then just doing what he does around the basket.”
It’s long been known how much offense Ayton creates with his gravity on his dives to the rim, as well as how efficient he is around the basket. But his midrange shooting — which will get its own time in the sun here next week — has been a revelation.
Ayton has shown a penchant for knocking down midrange looks for a while now, but with Paul out and defenses clogging the paint to try and take away the main source of DA’s offensive diet, he’s simply taken what the defense gives him on the short roll.
The result? Since the All-Star break, Ayton has shot 67.6 percent from the field, including 47.1 percent from the midrange.
“I’m just trying to be aggressive as heck right now,” Ayton said. “The playoffs is right around the corner, I’m just trying to maintain and get in even more shape and get that physicality and that extra possession and that extra effort. A fifth wind, if there’s even one. Just to get in that playoff-like environment to where we don’t take no plays off.”
The last step to unlocking a true offensive behemoth is still adding more ball-handling and a few moves off the dribble, but Ayton has adapted to Paul and Booker being out for over the last few weeks simply by resorting to his unstoppable hook shot and a suddenly infallible midrange jumper.
Against the Bucks, the Suns’ rebounding issues came to a head. Williams called it out as an area where they simply had to be better after surrendering 14 offensive boards and 14 second-chance points. Jae Crowder said it was a matter of attention to detail, and Ayton called himself out, saying he simply had to be better on the glass.
Over the last two games, the Suns have limited the Magic and Heat to a combined 14 offensive boards for only 13 second-chance points. That becomes even more impressive when one considers the Heat shot less than 40 percent from the field.
With Miami missing a whopping 53 shots, only six of them fell back into the Heat’s hands, and the Suns won the rebounding battle 55-38 overall.
“As hard as we played in Milwaukee, we felt like that was a bit of a difference, not being able to come up with the ball,” Williams said. “Sometimes it’s a funny bounce, sometimes it’s will. But to hold a team to that kind of shooting number and only give up six offensive rebounds, that’s a focused group.”
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