Phoenix Suns hold on without Kevin Durant in win over Spurs

On By Littum

PHOENIX — In the second year of a Phoenix Suns roster headlined by Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, the story continues to be healthy.

Just as Beal returned after missing a game in Tuesday’s 104-93 win over the San Antonio Spurs, Durant sprained his left ankle midway through the second quarter and did not return.

“You know, it’s part of our league,” Suns head coach Mike Budenholzer said of injuries. “We’re no different. I’m sure there’s not a team in the league that doesn’t deal with some people in and out of the lineups. Hopefully we’re teaching and starting to learn a way of playing that’s good for everyone, regardless of who is healthy and who is not.”

Booker has played all 20 games, but Beal returned after his fourth separate instance of sitting out a certain length of play. Beal’s season-high streak for games played thus far is six, while Durant sat out Phoenix’s first nine contests before recovering for the next seven. Tuesday was just his fourth game left.

“Just understanding that everybody goes through it,” Booker said. “Every team at some point in the season has to deal with that. I think it’s a special time for more opportunities for other people to get a chance because you never know what’s going to happen at the end of the season or even the playoffs , where you just have to figure it out. Nobody talks about injuries after a season is over.”

The Big 3 didn’t debut last season until Dec. 13, game no. 24. It took until January 6 for the trio to get a real streak together, 16 in a row. The season total was half that of 82, 41. More troubling is how it piled up from spurts of two, two, 16, two, one and 18 games. Just two legitimate stretches of sustained time together on the field was nowhere near enough.

This year it’s been two, one, four, two and now this one game against Spurs.

Those chunks of quality time, like the first few weeks of this season (for the most part), are crucial. And the Suns need more of them.

“The more time out there, the more things we find out, the more situations we’re put in that we learn from,” Booker said.

Maybe the collective time together is more important, and the constant shuffling is exaggerated, but from everything we’re told about teams coming together and building continuity, the disrupted rhythm matters.

Maybe it’s because Chris Paul was in the building, but the thought of what he said toward the end of the 2022-23 regular season, from the night of Durant’s ankle injury that prevented Phoenix post-trade from growing much as a unit, was keep calling out. .

“Anytime he’s not out there or other guys in our rotation, we’ll be fine, but to really see what that looks like consistently, we’ve got to try to get our guys,” Paul said in March 2023.

This year is not as extreme as that situation or last year, but it is a foreboding experience that the Suns must hope does not repeat itself.

Suns manage comfortable win

A San Antonio (11-10) team that played above expectations sank back down to Earth a bit, and a competent enough effort from the Suns got the job done.

Phoenix (12-8) sold out on Victor Wembanyama inside the arc, a strategy that paid off big. The Spurs began the game 2-of-7 from 3-point range before missing their next 18 attempts. This didn’t lead to as big of a deficit for them as it should have, but kept the Suns in control of the game when they could have easily lost it.

Wembanyama went scoreless in the first half before scoring 12 points in the first 4:06 of the third quarter to get San Antonio within four. A 32-23 Spurs third quarter, taking advantage of a stunted Suns flow without Durant, appeared to have the final frame and the game up for grabs before Booker scored 12 of his 29 points to tie it all up.

Backup point guard Monte Morris was in for most of that spurt after not playing in the first half. He was +13 across the eight minutes with four assists and zero turnovers.

Spurs guard Devin Vassell was 10-of-14 from the field for 25 points to give them some juice offensively, but Wembanyama (6-of-18) couldn’t build on the hot second-half start and the Spurs continued to claw 3s , and finished 8-for-44 (18.2%).

Booker reached 15,000 career points, becoming just the 61st player in league history to do so for one franchise. Only Giannis Antetokounmpo and Stephen Curry have scored more points for a single team since Booker entered the league in 2015. Booker is the second Sun to hit that total and is 639 points away from eclipsing Walter Davis’ franchise record of 15,666. With Booker’s current 24.7 points per match into account, he will probably break it sometime in late January or early February.

After playing 31 minutes off the bench in Jusuf Nurkic’s first game out with a right thigh contusion, rookie center Oso Ighodaro got the start Tuesday. He performed well again, contributing seven points, three rebounds, two assists and two steals in 28 minutes.

Because of Nurkic’s contributions and the huge disparity in how well or poorly he plays, there is at least some momentum building toward a shakeup in how the 5-spot rotation is progressing. Nurkic was rock solid for the majority of last season and gives Phoenix legit size, physicality and experience, but the flaws in his game have been much more prominent this year.

He’s shooting 59% at the rim, a rough mark for a center, after checking in at 60% last year, per cleaning the glass. The big difference has been how the big game hasn’t looked after the ball. 16 games into the season, Nurkic is assisting just 7.8% of the Suns’ baskets when he’s on the floor as opposed to 19.9 AST% last year. The turnover percentage has also grown from 19.1% to 21.5%. An AST% below 10% and TOV% above 20% has not been accomplished by someone who started every game they played since Kendrick Perkins in the 2013-14 season. per Stathead.

That momentum will increase the longer Nurkic is this erratic on the floor, or when Ighodaro performs at this level. The extra bounce and speed Ighodaro brings to the position makes a big difference, as evidenced by the last two Suns wins.

Phoenix was eliminated from the NBA Cup despite a similar point differential (+30) to last year (+34), where the same 3-1 record put the Suns in contention for a wild card spot. It will go to the Dallas Mavericks, who went on a 13-0 run late in the fourth quarter to rally back and beat the Memphis Grizzlies 3-1 by a +46 point differential. It was heavily weighted by Dallas’ 41-point win over the New Orleans Pelicans.

The Suns will now have one home game and one road game filled into the schedule on either December 12th or 13th and either December 15th or 16th.