Phoenix Suns striker Mikal Bridges, center, shoots between center Portland Trail Blazers center Enes Kanter and goalkeeper Damian Lillard during the first half of an NBA basketball game in Portland, Oregon , Thursday, March 11, 2021. (Photo AP / Craig Mitchelldyer)
There are many different identities that an NBA team can have to achieve many successes in the regular season.
The plan for the Phoenix Suns, who have contributed to a handful of their now 25 wins this season, remains in play, fighting and making no noise before hitting when there is a chance in the second half. From here, one of the two All-Stars or both will take care of the rest.
That was the story Thursday night in Portland to win by 127-121 to the Trail Blazers.
“The guys came into the gym and we had unreal juice and constancy, and I thought that was what was going on with our team tonight,” head coach Monty Williams said. “We just stayed the course … We just didn’t have any kind of collapse.”
After retiring in the first half to tie the game at halftime, the Suns fell 11 again in the middle of the third quarter. This was where his second stellar unit led by goalkeeper Cameron Payne and center Dario Saric ran a 26-11 run to put Phoenix at four.
After a couple of free throws from Damian Lillard for Portland, All-Star defender Chris Paul scored or helped the Suns’ next seven points. The other All-Star, bodyguard Devin Booker, pulled him out of there. He scored or helped 10 of Phoenix’s next 12 points.
“The book had a stretch where it just took us offensively,” Williams said.
The ease of this process is greatly helped by a very good defense, which allowed a two-pointer to close the game with a 13-point Suns lead with 2:40 left. Most importantly, this kept the game almost out of minutes being considered clutch, where Lillard has been supernovae this year.
Booker finished with 35 points, five rebounds and eight assists in the 12-on-21 pitch. He had one of those nights where he was seen to feel his team needed a little more great play to win. He delivered it, all with a left knee and bum that made him appear questionable in the injury report.
Paul said with a laugh after the game that, after his daily conversations with Booker during the break, he didn’t think his back-to-back teammate was going to play.
“He is different. Really, really. It’s different, “Paul said.” Not just the fact that he’s played tonight, but that soft 35 he’s had tonight. Jae Crowder and I were talking about it. He’s different. “
Booker injured his knee again at the end of the fourth quarter. He clearly suffered the pain after falling to the ground, but limped and stayed in the game. He said that after the game the time was “lighter” than before and that it was “straight”.
Paul was one of the Suns ’seven double-digit players with 19 points, five rebounds and seven assists. The Suns shot 59.0% from the field and 54.2% (13 of 24) at three points.
Lillard requires a lot of defensive attention, so if his support cast makes the defense pay, this will be one of the main recipes for the Blazers ’success. This was the case at first.
Lillard made shots or played well on the ball screens that Deandre Ayton of the Suns played well in his place. As part of the game plan, Ayton slipped a little higher to deny Lillard a lot of space and stayed with him when he had to deny his way to the edge. Ayton doing this, however, left Portland’s Enes Kanter covered by someone else in the pits.
“To try to counter Dame’s ability to shoot from the grocery store, give up 3s behind and offensive rebounds,” Williams said.
Kanter is a force in the glass and he proved it in the first quarter. Either he took fouls or the Blazers did them with a good ball movement secondary to Lillard’s initial reading. Portland had seven of its 15 offensive rebounds in the first quarter and Kanter had six in the overall.
That resulted in a big quarter and a half of the Blazers, who shot 10 of 20 of 3 at the time, and got Phoenix to go up to 13. The Suns had a few minor things that went wrong during that stretch, but the there were key principles like ball movement in attack and rotations in defense.
So a strong individual effort or two would probably result in a run, and in fact it did in an increase through Booker and Mikal Bridges.
A 16-4 run to close out the first half and tie the game included eight points and an assist from Booker plus an additional five points through Bridges, who led all scorers at the break with 16 of their 18 points.
In the third quarter, the Blazers made a slight modification to continue going to Ayton by reintroducing him into their actions. Lillard made some hard shots and when Saric entered Ayton with 4:12 left for the third quarter, Ayton did not return.
That was despite the big friend getting a few cubes in the third quarter, and as Portland went towards him, he was almost fine the night out of hand problems with basketball. Ayton recorded 23 minutes, his lowest total of the season that did not suffer an explosion, and added 11 points with four rebounds.
Saric scored 11 points, five rebounds and two assists. He gave the Suns a steady source of good offense in charge, taking advantage of the mismatches while staying defensive.
“A lot of teams end up going from 1 to 5 and having someone like Dario who can punish them inside makes them unable to do that,” Booker said.
How Good morning is basketball Tom Ziller points out that there are multiple ways to look at the dynamics of who closes at 5 given the Suns ’aspirations for the postseason.
Williams finishes with Saric for the second time in three games after returning continuously to Ayton this year and the latter is, again, remarkable. One must also consider how Phoenix’s luxury is given thanks to Saric’s fantastic play that should win some love for the sixth man of the year.
Speaking of this award, we will also get Payne some recognition. He was a ridiculous plus-24 in 20 minutes and recorded 13 points, three rebounds, six assists and one steal.
Lillard finished the night with 30 points, seven rebounds, eight assists and two steals in 10-of-23 shots, and it looked like the Suns did almost everything to limit what he does, which speaks to his superstar.
In that sense, the Suns (25-11) have beaten the Blazers (21-15) twice and hold the tiebreaker in the standings. Beyond that, they have twice faced a strong rival from the West and it has gone well for them.
Paul was asked if the Suns took this into account, and the future Hall of Fame quickly realized that Portland was without CJ McCollum and Jusuf Nurkie, saying they should focus on themselves.
His team has been pretty good at it, an amazing attribute for the group to have given everyone except Paul and Crowder lacks experience in winning teams.
He talked about how they are able to do that, while noting that the Suns will really prove what it is once the hot stretch of 17 wins in their last 20 ends.
“I think he trusts. I think our coaching staff, the culture of our team, we just have a great group of guys that I’m telling you about, “said Paul.” And to see how good Cam Payne has been playing when he’s there, we just get one of these teams where everyone cheers everyone.Everyone is happy for everyone.It’s beautiful.
“We will have difficult times, certain adversities. When this adversity comes, I think it will be when it will really be put to the test, but the spirit is right in this team ”.