In their first official game back, the Phoenix Suns took down the Washington Wizards to kick things off the right way.
The Phoenix Suns took care of business in their first regular-season game since the middle of March against the Washington Wizards, winning 125-112 in a game that was both a must-win and one they should have won.
It wasn’t always pretty, but it was pretty enough to get the job done and with one meaningful game under their belt, they may be ready to pull off some upsets.
In the beginning, the loose Suns we saw in the scrimmage games looked to be playing a little tight, almost as if they knew they were supposed to win and were trying to simply not mess it up.
It was Dario Saric, fresh off a twisted ankle and Cam Payne, in his first official game with his new team, who provided the early energy and scrappiness off the bench that made it so a team full of scrappy players on the Wizards didn’t out-scrappy them.
To win the NCAA championship, a team has to win six straight games (seven if they are in the First Four). That more or less the position the Phoenix Suns find themselves. While it isn’t exactly a win-or-go-home format, they need all eight games of the regular-season return to give themselves a good shot at making the play-in game.
Survive and advance has to be this team’s mentality. They have to play every game like it is their last because one loss and it may be just that.
Here are four takeaways from a solid game-one win:
Ayton the enigma
This would be a good experiment:
Every time Deandre Ayton gets near the ball, Phoenix Suns fans should look away from the screen. Maybe there is a way to blur him and only him out in a telecast. Whatever they need to do in order to just stop watching him play, do that.
Then, at the end of the game, have them look at the box score and judge his game based on that.
Throughout the game, much of Suns Twitter were pulling their virtual hair out at how tentative Ayton was playing. I even wondered if he was wearing mittens at one point because so many times he simply wasn’t able to grab the ball.
Then you look up and see he had 24 points, 12 rebounds, two blocks, oh, and his first two official 3-pointers of his NBA career and you think, “Wow, he had a really good game.”
At some point, Suns fans are just going to have to face it. Ayton’s way of being a double-double machine is just different than other dominating centers of the past like Shaq. The man is all finesse and very little power, but as any coach will tell you, two points is two points, and DA gets buckets, boards, and blocks his own way.
After the game, he described the win as, “Pretty lit.”
Agreed.
Booker returned to mid-season form
In the three exhibition games, we saw Booker go about 75 percent. It wasn’t that he was loafing, but he was focused on facilitating, getting shots up when he needed to, and getting comfortable with all things NBA bubble courts.
In this game, however, he turned it on and returned to mid-season form. He waltzed to 27 points, four assists, and five rebounds in effortless fashion.
However, because no one is perfect, I feel obliged to point out a few points where Booker could drastically improve.
Booker is good at almost every facet of the game, but throwing lob passes is not one of them. His lobs to Ayton are more like a tennis player tossing the ball up for a serve if that tennis player had never played tennis before.
On one play, Ayton got it somehow, made a move to the rim and dunked it, but there were several times where it was so off, it resulted in a turnover. In fact, Booker could really catapult his game if he reduced his turnovers, may of which are careless.
He led the team with five on the day, and while he more than makes up for those with his scoring and passing, cutting those down would take his game to an even greater level.
The rotation felt right…almost
So much as been made of the backup point guard role, but if one game were any indication, it feels like Monty Williams has a good read on that and the rotation as a whole.
Newcomer, Cam Payne, was the first point guard off the bench to give Ricky Rubio a breather and the former lottery pick played like he plans to secure the position. He was the Suns’ most aggressive player on defense early and made several strong drives to the basket on the offensive side of the ball as well.
Payne finished with nine points, three rebounds, two assists, two steals, a block, and an unbelievable +21 in the +/- column. That is exactly what the Suns need out of him.
Jevon Carter played solid minutes as well, as he has done a good job being a defensive pesk and filling in for Booker when needed.
The only time where the Suns looked out of sorts was the end of the third quarter when Ayton, Booker, and Rubio were all on the bench. It is clear this team cannot afford for all of those guys to be out of the game at the same time. They need at least one of this trio in at all times in order to provide any real threat on offense.
The Suns started a new lineup this game (Rubio-Booker-Bridges-Johnson-Ayton) and it worked out. I actually like Dario Saric coming off the bench and providing a good combination of hustle and shooting. Saric had 16 points, six rebounds and showed no signs of ankle pain.
It is good for Williams to figure out his rotation early in this bubble season because there is no time for a lot of experimenting.
Free Throw shooting for the win
The best free-throw shooting team in the league continued their dominance at the line with an impressive 30-32 (93.8%) outing. Bubble star, Mikal Bridges, was the only player to miss a shot from the charity stripe, and my guess is that he’ll hear about it from his teammates over Call of Duty tonight.
The Suns were a seven-point favorite going into this game and there is no doubt bettors around the world were pleased with that level of efficiency at the line.
Free throws for the win.
And what a good win it was. This was a strange combination of an easy win and a must-win for the Phoenix Suns and what matters is they came out with the victory.
Take care of business. Survive and advance. That is the mentality.
Next up will be the Dallas Mavericks in a Sunday nightcap. Who is ready for some Luka talk?