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The Phoenix Suns beat the Golden State Warriors 134-105 Tuesday night in an unexpected beatdown of the defending NBA champions.
While October wins mean very little in the grand scheme of things, it was a fun showdown between two teams that seemed to be on a Western Conference Finals collision course all of last year until the Suns failed to hold up their end of the bargain.
Since this was the first time in years where the Suns and Warriors met each other at full strength, here are a few observations worth taking away from this early-season matchup.
The Warriors have won four titles in the last eight years. Full stop.
However, on Tuesday, it was the Suns who kept their mental composure in a battle between two Western powerhouses.
“I thought emotionally, we kept it together when it was starting to get a little squirrelly,” coach Monty Williams said. “We were able to make enough plays during that time where we could get back to solid.”
Granted, this game meant more to the Suns than the Dubs; Golden State has nothing to prove coming off yet another title, while Phoenix spent the last few days admitting their goal is to get to where the Warriors have already been.
With that being said, it was somewhat striking to see Klay Thompson lose his cool during his third-quarter back-and-forth with Devin Booker. Thompson’s trash-talking and shove past Mikal Bridges earned him the first ejection of his 759-game career.
“Just having a tough night,” Booker said of Thompson’s reaction. “I think everything plays into that. It’s frustration. I’ve been there before. And you know what they have, they have the four rings, so they’re gonna use that in all the trash talk. Rightfully so, respectfully. But that don’t have nothing to do with competing.”
Booker certainly didn’t mind competing. While Thompson was ejected with just 2 points on 1-of-8 shooting, Book finished with 34 points and 7 assists on 10-of-19 shooting. He locked down Thompson on one end and found plenty of success against him on the other:
While Book was complimentary of the Splash Brother in his postgame interviews, chalking it up to two competitors being in the heat of the moment, he noted that Thompson’s response went right to “four rings” every time. So what did Booker say that got a seasoned vet so incensed?
“I said respectfully, I admire his game, but we’re two different players, and we play a different brand of basketball and different type of basketball,” Booker explained. “So if anybody’s trying to do any type of comparison, there’s nothing there.”
Regardless of what Book said, the incident shed some light on how far this Suns team has come in those types of heated exchanges.
“We used to say the word ‘poise’ so much, the guys hated hearing it, I would imagine, ’cause that’s what we talked about,” Williams said of his first few years in Phoenix. “We gotta have poise in those moments. We certainly are better at it, and I think we’re going to continue to improve.”
Even after a stretch with seven technical fouls called in a four-minute span, the Suns closed the third quarter on a 22-9 run after Thompson’s ejection. Both Booker and Deandre Ayton agreed this group has taken that message to heart when it comes to keeping their cool.
“Way better,” Ayton said. “I know we picked up some fouls, some technicals, even I did. But it was mainly just, ‘We’re getting beaten up.’ At the same time, we still got back to playing Suns basketball. Forgot about, you know, calls [that] didn’t go our way. We didn’t care. We made it our game in a way.”
Part of the Suns making it their game was punishing the Warriors’ smaller rotations — something they’ll have to do in any future meetings, especially in a playoff setting. The Dubs can roll out more traditional centers like Kevon Looney and James Wiseman, but they’re at their most dangerous in small-ball lineups with Draymond Green at the 5.
When they arrive, the Suns have got to be able to counter with the physicality and size of Deandre Ayton and Jock Landale. Williams praised Booker and Chris Paul’s ability to feed those mismatches inside thanks to the way the floor was spaced and the work that assistant coach Mark Bryant has put in with the bigs.
“Throughout the game, I thought DA and Jock, if you look at their combined numbers, that was something that we talked about at the end, ’cause that was an area where we feel like we have to grow,” Williams said. “When teams switch onto DA and Jock and Dario [Saric] and [Bismack Biyombo], we gotta make them pay for that.”
Phoenix accomplished that goal on Tuesday. Ayton notched 16 points and 14 rebounds on 6-of-14 shooting, while Landale chipped in 17 points and 7 rebounds on 6-of-12 shooting on his birthday. Ayton got to the foul line four times, and Landale got there five times.
“I like that a lot, he got to the free-throw line a couple times,” Booker said of DA. “He’s playing the pocket, and then once he caught it, he was making an aggressive move. They tend to go a five-out offense with five guards with Draymond at the 5, and I think that’s when we have to just take advantage with our size. Deandre and Jock both did really well with that tonight.”
The Suns outscored the Warriors 62-48 in points in the paint. The key to doing so was establishing the physicality early on, which Ayton compared to Game 1 of a playoff series where two elite teams try to set the tone for future meetings and feel each other out. Despite Green’s best attempts to get under his skin, DA responded with force.
“We actually set the tone of the legal, physical limit in that game,” Ayton said. “I won’t say we did it to get on the nerves, but it got to them. Teams don’t like that when you keep hitting ’em, hitting people over and over, especially to the legal limit. People get frustrated and they complain to the refs, and the game got a little junky, but we stayed here [gesturing to an even level], and I was really proud of that.”
Once the Warriors got beat up by that 1-2 punch of Ayton and Landale and stopped switching, that’s when Booker started feasting. As for the birthday boy, Ayton called Landale “the toughest Australian” he’s come across — high praise from someone who also played with Aron Baynes.
“The dude is just so headstrong, and he just does everything right for the team,” Ayton said. “Setting that tone with points in the paint and doing what we supposed to, like taking advantage of the mismatches, that’s what really set the tone and gave us confidence to run more of our offense.”
The Suns were the only team to rank in the top-five in both offensive and defensive rating last year, but their defense was slightly better. It was also their defense that let them down in the playoffs, and with Jae Crowder away from the team, it was reasonable to wonder how good this group would be on that end.
Reading into a four-game sample size isn’t prudent, but it’s reassuring to see Phoenix ranked third in defensive rating so far — once again ahead of their offense, which ranks 10th. Tuesday’s win marks the 53rd consecutive game the Suns have won when holding their opponent under 110 points.
“Any time you hold a team like that to 105, that’s saying a lot about our respect for them, the attention to detail,” Williams said. “They gotta miss shots, but we just respect ’em. We went through our session this morning to get ready for them, and it was about as focused as any session we’ve ever had. Guys understand that if you don’t play at a certain level, you’re gonna get beat pretty badly. It was a good night for us defensively.”
Against a team that forces you to switch as often as Golden State’s nonstop actions will, being on a string and talking were essential for Phoenix on the defensive end.
“Communication, talking, everybody figuring out their schemes and just playing together,” Chris Paul summarized.
After giving up 66 points in the first half, the Suns held the Dubs to just 39 in the second half and 105 overall. This comes after they held the LA Clippers to 95 points and the top-ranked Dallas Mavericks offense to 105 in the season opener.
Mikal Bridges, last year’s Defensive Player of the Year runner-up, called it another early test for the Suns defense at shootaround earlier in the day.
“If you’re not connected as one, it’s definitely a tough, tough, tough time guarding ’em,” he said. “So I’m just excited to see where we’re at. I think we had a pretty good defensive game against the Clippers overall as a team, so I think we’re leading to the right spot. And I mean, why not this game? It’s a good challenge, especially how good they are, to see how good our defense is.”
Suffice it to say, they passed their latest test.
Prior to tipoff, Monty Williams was honest about one of the biggest keys to making the whole “Mikal Bridges and everyone else creating offense” thing.
“We just think Chris is turning down too many shots,” he said. “Everybody’s on Chris about shooting, he’s probably sick of everybody telling him, but we just want him to quickly shoot it, don’t think. He thinks the right play is getting somebody else a shot in a catch-shot and roll because we have good catch-shooters. But getting him off the ball is something that he’s wanted for a couple of years now.”
In his defense, the Point God did get those 3s up against the Clippers. He just didn’t make them.
“I shot eight of ’em last game,” Paul said, laughing. “But when you got so many weapons on our team, a lot of times you’re facilitating. I’m gonna shoot, I promise.”
After going 1-for-8 from deep against LA, Paul was shooting just 9-for-28 overall and 1-for-11 from long range on the season. Fortunately, three games is a small sample size, and his fourth game was all the evidence one needed to see that CP3 is, in fact, nowhere near washed.
Finishing his night with 16 points, 9 assists and 7 rebounds, Paul went 5-for-10 from the field and 4-for-5 from deep. As it turns out, a guy who’s shot better than 40 percent on catch-and-shoot looks for his 18-year career is still a pretty good shooter!
“It’s gotta be a confidence builder, but Chris doesn’t need confidence, he’s never lacking there,” Williams said of his performance. “I think he’s just really intentional about what he thinks is the right play, which is somebody else taking the shot. And Kevin Young, Book, Jay Gaspar, Denise Romero, like, everybody’s telling Chris to shoot the ball because he’s a good shooter. Whether it’s off the dribble or in catch-shot environments, we want him to shoot.”
Paul has repeatedly mentioned how playing off the ball is something they’ve been talking about for months now, in order to be more difficult to guard come playoff time. However, even for a future Hall-of-Famer, it’s still been a bit of an adjustment.
“Majority of my career, I’ve always been the playmaker, so it’s nice to get a few catch-and-shoots,” he said. “It’s something I gotta get used to, ’cause I’m usually always creating for other guys, but it’s been nice to get some catch-and-shoots.”
Last season’s second-round demise for a 64-win team served as a reminder that in the NBA playoffs, regular-season success means little.
However, after losing that type of traumatic Game 7, after a summer filled with trade rumors and messy contract situations, after the Robert Sarver investigation, and after Jae Crowder essentially forced his way out, for the Suns to start off 3-1, with a bunch of new bench guys to incorporate, against an opening schedule that included Dallas, LAC, the healthy Portland Trail Blazers and the defending champs?
That’s one hell of a way to let the world know this team is still a contender, especially as they expel the negative energy that was hanging overhead all the way up to the season opener.
“It just seems like since the second half of that game, and even in Portland, we’re kind of finding a rhythm,” Williams said. “It’s hard for me to put a label on it. But I do feel you on that, it was a weird day, game one. But it seems like we’re starting to just turn the page and just play the kind of basketball we’re capable of playing.”
Okay, but in all seriousness…why do the Suns ever wear jerseys that aren’t these gorgeous purple Sunburst throwbacks, again?
From the jerseys to the ’90s intros for starting lineups to the players’ reactions all week to getting to wear these classics again, it’s safe to say these timeless gems are as welcome as they’ve ever been in the Valley.
In the last week, we’ve already touched on Devin Booker’s mindset entering Year 8 and how he’s attacking the basket more, so we’ll keep this brief.
But after a 34-point outing against the Warriors, with his 130 points through the first four games being the most in franchise history, it bears repeating: Book could be ready for the most complete scoring season of his career. Williams certainly didn’t mince words when asked about Book’s game at this juncture.
“Probably the most complete player in the league right now,” he said. “There’s no weaknesses in his game, and he’s scoring everywhere.”
Paul believes the Suns’ ability to play with pace and move the ball is freeing him up to attack in different and new ways.
“He’s handling the ball in the pick-and-roll, getting the middies, he’s catch-and-shoot 3s, he’s catching it in transition, attacking,” Paul said. “So I think the way that we playin’ as a team is giving him the opportunity to show the full arsenal of what he can do.”
For Booker, the continued, futile pursuit of perfection is his focus.
“I’m just trying to get better at my craft and perfect my craft,” he said. “As you guys know, there’s no perfecting this game, so it’s an ongoing pursuit for life. Even when I’m retired and done, I’m still gonna be hooping. My dad still plays every day, four times a week. It’s just in our blood. And that’s the beauty of this game, you can’t perfect it.”
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