After a 102-100 come from behind victory over the Memphis Grizzlies, there are many positive takeaways for the Phoenix Suns. Perhaps the most important improvement came from the man on the sidelines. After nine games, Igor Kokoškov appears to have found his groove.
On a night when Devin Booker struggled over his 36 minutes of play, then dominated for 12 points in the fourth quarter, first-year head coach Igor Kokoškov kept his composure and might have coached the best game of his young Phoenix Suns head coaching career.
Although you can give Booker all the credit in the world for the way he closed the game he could not have done it without Igor setting him up.
This started last week against the Spurs when Kokoškov moved T.J. Warren into the starting lineup over Ryan Anderson. Although Anderson got the start tonight due to Warren’s injury, you could tell Igor was just starting to make positive adjustments.
It continued on Friday against the Raptors when Tyson Chandler got a surprising DNP, allowing Richaun Holmes to get playing time. This was followed up by Chandler’s release/buyout on Sunday.
This further showed that he had seen what we had been seeing and made the decision to play the young guys.
Tonight he took it a step further in a positive direction. Even with no Warren, and Booker in foul trouble, Jamal Crawford only received 6 minutes, which is about the extent that you want Crawford to play on a team so young.
Igor also made adjustments in crunch time to set the Phoenix Suns up. The biggest being keeping Mikal Bridges in the whole 4the quarter and rotating Trevor Ariza and Ryan Anderson out. This paid off big time as Bridges hit two huge 3-pointers down the stretch.
With the team finally starting to get healthy, and Igor getting settled in and finding out who “his guys” are, the Phoenix Suns could get on a little hot stretch. There is still time for them to be the team we hoped they could be this year, and it looks like after a bumpy start Igor has the right formula to go with.