Phoenix Suns striker Mikal Bridges, center, kicks between the center of the Portland Trail Blazers, Enes Kanter, on the left, and guard Damian Lillard during the first half of an NBA basketball game in Portland, Oregon, Thursday, March 11, 2021. (AP Photo / Craig Mitchelldyer)
There are many different identities that an NBA team can have to be very successful in the regular season.
The Phoenix Suns’ plan, which has contributed to a handful of their now 25 wins in the season, is to stand at the games, fighting and not be shaken before attacking when the opportunity comes in the second half. Thereafter, one of the two All-Stars or both will take care of the rest.
That was the story on Thursday night in Portland for a 127-121 victory over the Trail Blazers.
“The guys came to the gym and we had an unreal energy and a firmness about it and I thought that was what happened to our team tonight,” said coach Monty Williams. “We just kept going … We just didn’t have any breakdowns.”
After recovering in the first half to tie the game, Suns lost another 11 in the middle of the third period. That’s where his second stellar unit led by point guard Cameron Payne and center Dario Saric went on a 26-11 run to put the Phoenix in four.
After two free throws by Damian Lillard for Portland, All-Star point guard Chris Paul scored or helped the Suns’ next seven points. The other All-Star, shooting at guard Devin Booker, left there. He scored or helped 10 of Phoenix’s next 12 points.
“Book had a stretch where he just offensively carried us,” said Williams.
The ease of this process is helped in large part by a very good defense, which allowed that double blow to seal the game with a 13 point lead from the Suns with 2:40 left. Most importantly, it kept the game almost always out of the clutching minutes, where Lillard was a supernova this year.
Booker finished with 35 points, five rebounds and eight assists in 12 of 21 shots. He had one of those nights when you could see that he felt his team might need that extra bit of great play from him to win. He handed it over, all with a bruised left knee that had listed him as questionable in the injury report.
Paul said laughing after the game that, after his daily conversations with Booker during the break, he thought his court mate was not going to play.
“He’s different. Really, really. He’s different, ”said Paul. “Not only the fact that he played tonight, but the soft 35 he had tonight. Jae Crowder and I were there talking about it. He’s different. “
Booker injured his knee again at the end of the fourth period. He was clearly in pain after falling to the ground, but he limped and continued in the game. He said that the post-game time was “lighter” than the previous one and that he is “straight”.
Paul was one of seven Suns players with double digits, 19 points, five rebounds and seven assists. The Suns shot 59.0% of the field and 54.2% (13 of 24) in the three-point range.
Lillard requires a lot of defensive attention, so if his support cast is making the defense pay, that will be one of the main recipes for the Blazers’ success. That was the case at the beginning.
Lillard was making pitches or the right move outside the ball screens that Suns’ Deandre Ayton was playing well in his place. As part of the game plan, Ayton climbed a little higher to deny Lillard a lot of space and grabbed him when he had to deny his way to the edge. Ayton doing this, however, left Enes Kanter of Portland covered by someone else in the boxes.
“To try to contain Dame’s ability to shoot from the supermarket, you are giving up 3s in the back and offensive rebounds,” said Williams.
Kanter is a force in glass and proved it in the first quarter. He was making a mistake or the Blazers were making a good secondary movement of the ball on Lillard’s initial reading. Portland had seven of his 15 offensive rebounds in the first quarter, and Kanter had six in total in the game.
This resulted in a great quarter and a half of the Blazers, who were shooting 10 out of 20 out of 3 at that point, and had Phoenix losing by up to 13. The Suns had some little things that went wrong in that stretch, but the key principles like the movement of the ball in the attack and the rotations in the defense were there.
Thus, one or two strong individual efforts would likely trigger a race, and it did happen in a wave across the Booker and Mikal Bridges.
A 16-4 run to close the first half and tie the game featured eight points and an assist from Booker plus an additional five points via Bridges, who led all the top scorers in the break with 16 of his 18 points.
In the third quarter, the Blazers made a small adjustment to keep going to Ayton, reinserting him in his actions. Lillard did some hard kicks with that, and when Saric took over from Ayton at 4:12 the end of the third quarter, Ayton didn’t come back.
That’s despite the big guy getting a few buckets in the third quarter, and while Portland was going for him, he was almost all right at night, except for some hand problems with basketball. Ayton recorded 23 minutes, his lowest total of the season with no major losses, and added 11 points with four rebounds.
Saric scored 11 points, five rebounds and two assists. He gave Suns a consistent source of good offensive on the crossbar, capitalizing on mismatches while remaining defensively.
“Many teams end up changing from 1 to 5 and having someone like Dario there, who can punish them inside, makes them unable to do that,” said Booker.
How Good morning is basketball Tom Ziller notes, there are several ways to look at the dynamics of who closes at 5, given Suns’ aspirations for the postseason.
Williams finishing with Saric for the second time in three games after continually returning to Ayton this year and the last one is, again, notable. It should also be seen as the luxury that Phoenix is afforded thanks to Saric’s fantastic game, which should render him the love of Sixth Man of the Year.
Speaking of this award, we are going to get some recognition for Payne as well. He made a ridiculous plus-24 in 20 minutes and registered 13 points, three rebounds, six assists and a steal.
Lillard ended the night with 30 points, seven rebounds, eight assists and two steals in 10 of 23 shots, and it looked like the Suns did everything they could to limit what he did, which shows his stardom.
On that note, the Suns (25-11) have already beaten the Blazers (21-15) twice and held the tie on them in the standings. In addition, they faced a strong opponent from the West twice and did well.
Paul was asked whether the Suns takes this into account, and the future Hall of Famer was quick to note that Portland was without CJ McCollum and Jusuf Nurkie, saying that they had to focus on themselves.
His team has been very good at doing this, an amazing attribute for the group to have given everyone outside of Paul and Crowder a lack of great experience on winning teams.
He talked about how they are able to do this, while also pointing out that the Suns will really show what it is once the final stretch of 17 wins in their last 20 matches.
“I think confidence. I think our coaching staff, the culture of our team – we just received a great group of guys, man, I’m telling you, ”said Paul. “And to see how well Cam Payne has been playing while he’s there, we just picked up one of those teams where everyone supports everyone. Everyone is happy for everyone. It’s cool.
“We are going to have some difficult moments, some adversities. When that adversity arrives, I think it will be when it will really be tested, but the spirit is definitely right in this team. “