Deandre Ayton joined Phoenix Suns teammate Devin Booker in the semi-finals of the NBA2K tournament when he beat Trae Young of the Atlanta Hawks.
The Phoenix Suns haven’t made the real playoffs since 2010, but now they have not one, but two players in the semi-finals of the NBA 2K Players Tournament. Devin Booker punched his card to the Final Four earlier in the evening when he took out Rui Hachimura, but now it was Deandre Ayton‘s turn to represent the orange and purple and take home a victory.
Ayton played against All-Star Trae Young in the quarter-finals Thursday night and to be honest, I didn’t have my hopes up. Young torched Harrison Barnes in the first round, putting up over 100 points, so it made sense to be a little skeptical of Ayton chances.
It also didn’t help the last time Ayton played, he shot exclusively ill-advised 3-pointers and missed the vast majority of them.
Luckily, my skepticism was unfounded.
Ayton got out to a hot start, hitting five of his first seven 3s, and while Young made it close for a minute in the second half, DA pulled away and got the victory for the good guys 73-66.
This wasn’t the first time Ayton and Young battled in NBA2K. The two were teammates at the 2017 McDonalds All-American game. During the matchup, the two reminisced about that weekend, where Ayton said, “Bro, that’s all we did (was play 2K)!)”
There was a dispute about who won back then, but on this day, Ayton won, so we’ll assume he probably did back then too.
Ayton also revealed he bought a treadmill recently.
As a 22-year-old would say, “That’s crazy.” Seriously. That’s all the two of them said all game. “That’s crazy! That’s crazy, bro.” I get that it’s a fairly common saying, but the way they used it made me feel older than Andre Iguodala.
Oh wait, I am older than Andre Iguodala? Dang.
Anyway, he admitted in the first round he hadn’t been doing much cardio, but now, there is a remedy. While I’m sure Ayton is using that thing out now, there is no doubt it will suffer the fate of every other in-home treadmill ever purchased in America and be resigned to dust collector within a matter of months–not because Ayton will skip cardio, but because (hopefully) he and the rest of America will be able to be within six feet of each other again.
Ayton now takes on trash-talking Patrick Beverly in an all Phoenix Suns vs. LA Clippers semi-finals. Get ’em DA.