A season-best offensive night fueled the Phoenix Suns to a 130-105 win over the Golden State Warriors on Friday night.
Phoenix dished out a season-high 41 assists, made 19 3s and shot 56.2% from the field. The assists are the most by the Suns since December 2007, the 19 triples are a top-five mark this year and the 56.2 FG% is the third-best mark this season. It allowed for the rare blowout win.
The Suns played an OK game defensively, with most of the failures coming in transition, and had too many turnovers giving the Warriors free baskets. But when they are this elite offensively, they can overcome their flaws. It has been an under-discussed sublot of their disappointing season, not being the nuclear offensive team they should be, and instead just pretty good to solid on most nights.
This game had serious blowout energy a quarter-and-a-half in, with Golden State not managing much offense in the half-court while the Suns were ultra efficient with great pace and not getting too out of control in the other problem areas. But then the Suns’ turnovers and transition defense got silly, putting the Warriors within six on a 10-3 run for a game the Suns controlled.
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Phoenix’s response to those changes in momentum was there in Monday’s win but absolutely was not in Wednesday’s loss. It found one for this spurt, an 8-0 surge to go back up 14. The Suns made 13 of their first 17 shot attempts in the second quarter and ended the first half up 11 on the backs of 20 assists on 24 field goals.
The Suns opened the third quarter on a 11-4 spurt, thanks to constant energy plays from Ryan Dunn and Nick Richards. That put Phoenix up 18 across three-and-a-half minutes and offering the Warriors a chance to fold, something they will do often in that situation, with Golden State coming in 1-18 when trailing after three quarters. It was just going to be a matter of if the Suns would give them a window to find some of that aforementioned momentum again.
Phoenix extended the lead to 22, an effort aided by the Warriors missing 12 straight shots and having to finish the third quarter without a resting Stephen Curry. But a Brandin Podziemski 3, Moses Moody and-one and another Podziemski 3 kept it within 19 when Kevin Durant began warming up, giving Curry a shot in the first few minutes of the final frame to make things interesting.
Golden State scored on four straight possessions (with three via Curry) to cut the Suns’ lead down to only 18 because Phoenix answered all those with its own scores. The Suns persisted with this on the Warriors’ next two trips resulting in points, and by then, Phoenix was up 23 with seven minutes remaining.
After tying a career high of nine turnovers on Wednesday, Devin Booker bounced back to the recognizable form he has been in for most of January. He was 12-of-23 in 32 minutes for 31 points with five rebounds, 11 assists and two turnovers. Durant didn’t even have to play in the fourth quarter and added 19 while Bradley Beal mostly made up for his five turnovers with 21 points on 9-of-12 shooting.
Grayson Allen ends the month of January shooting 53% from 3-point range and is now within range of his league-leading 46.1% from last season at 43.5%. Injuries got him off to a slow start and it was only a matter of time before he rediscovered his form. Allen had 11 points, six rebounds, seven assists and a steal on Friday. His name has come up in trade speculation, specifically as a player the Suns could move to acquire more draft capital for a Jimmy Butler trade, but he’s shown the last six weeks why he’s valuable to this team.
We’ve come to know “math” in this space, otherwise known as the possession battle and difference 3-point shooting can make. Take more shots than the opponent via managing offensive rebounds and turnovers, while making more of the shots that count for one more point, and every night you’re going to be in a great position to win. Oklahoma City (turnovers) and Houston (rebounding) are the kings of two of those categories and uncoincidentally are the two leaders in the Western Conference.
This made Friday a terrific test for the Suns, facing an opponent they have far more talent than that could overcome that by winning those margins decisively.
Coming into the game, there was a major gap between these two squads in rebounding and 3s. Over the two-month period since Golden State’s freefall began, it was seventh in offensive rebounding percentage and Phoenix was 29th, per Cleaning the Glass. For defensive rebounding, the Warriors are third and the Suns are 24th. In 3-point attempts per game, the Warriors were taking nearly eight more. And in their last 10 games, they were averaging a preposterous 45.2 a night.
Turnovers is where Phoenix would seemingly have to make up some of this, an area both squads have been perfectly blah in over that period.
But, uh, when you shoot 19% better than the opposition and knock down three more 3s, that’ll do it too. The Suns overcame attempting seven less shots and losing both second-chance points 9-4 and points off turnovers 15-12. Most notably, neither of those two numbers for Golden State were in the range of the high teens to mid-20s when things have been really messy.
Phoenix put Ryan Dunn back in the starting lineup the game after he played only nine minutes coming back from an ankle sprain. Head coach Mike Budenholzer said afterward it didn’t have much to do with the injury, a concerning indication that a fully healthy team meant a drop-off in Dunn’s minutes, and Dunn was only at 13 minutes on Friday. Even with a high-impact stretch like he had in the third quarter, it looks like Dunn will make way for Beal, Royce O’Neale and Allen.
Richards posted 14 points and 16 rebounds with two blocks in just 24 minutes. He’s going to make mistakes but that’s the type of production and presence around the rim that is going to continue to be a big help to the Suns.
The Warriors did not have Draymond Green (left calf strain) or Jonathan Kuminga (right ankle sprain), making this the second straight game the Suns played an opponent without two of of its top-five players in minutes per game. It is particularly damaging for Golden State, as it isn’t particularly meeting the hype when it comes to depth and lacks consistent production from anyone other than Curry and Andrew Wiggins.
Curry was held in check to 14 points on 5-of-14 shooting while 17 each from Wiggins and Moody, plus 13 from Buddy Hield, was not nearly enough firepower to compete in a shootout.
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