Even though two of the Suns’ three stars were sidelined with injury on Saturday, the team still managed to win by a comfortable margin.
Grayson Allen drove the lane, rose over the crowd, and drained a one-handed slam in the middle of the third quarter, increasing Phoenix’s advantage to 30 points.
Even though two of the Suns’ three stars were sidelined with injury on Saturday, the team still managed to win by a comfortable margin.
Grayson Allen drove the lane, rose over the crowd, and drained a one-handed slam in the middle of the third quarter, increasing Phoenix’s advantage to 30 points.
Even though two of the Suns’ three stars were sidelined with injury on Saturday, the team still managed to win by a comfortable margin.
The Suns defeated the Utah Jazz 126-104 behind the combined efforts of Kevin Durant’s 26 points and Eric Gordon’s 21.
In his words, “tonight was one of those nights that we moved in the right direction,” Durant said.
After a close first few minutes, the Suns went on to completely dominate the rest of the game. By halftime, they had built a 16-point advantage, and Allen’s jam midway through the third quarter had the arena roaring.
On Saturday, the Phoenix Suns’ Big 3 were a one-man show, but Kevin Durant still managed to score eight points on eleven attempts. The thirteen-time All-Star made all of his free throws and also contributed seven assists. Both Bradley Beal (back) and Devin Booker (ankle) have missed all three games so far this season.
With the Suns already ahead by a large margin, Durant sat out much of the game and played for just 29 minutes.
Frank Vogel, the Suns’ first-year head coach, has been impressed with his team’s defensive performance. When taking shots from the field, Utah only had a 44% success rate.
“They’re executing our scheme at a pretty high level, and they’re doing it with a great deal of effort, hustle, and scrappiness, which is what we’re asking them to do,” Vogel said. As one player put it, “We know we have elite talent on this basketball team, and if the effort piece is greater than our opponent, we’re going to be really tough to beat.”
Jusuf Nurkic had 10 points, seven rebounds, and six assists, while Allen scored 17 points in addition. In the third quarter, Phoenix scored 40 points to effectively end the contest.
It was “Grayson got it going in the third, and we were able to move off of one another,” as Durant put it. That’s the essence of the game of basketball. This is a huge victory, and I really hope we can keep the momentum going.
The Jazz played poorly, committing 19 turnovers. Lauri Markkanen scored 19 points on 5-of-10 shooting from deep. Keyonte George, the 16th overall selection out of Baylor, contributed 12 points, seven rebounds, and six assists, while Collin Sexton scored 14 points off the bench.
“I think there were moments when our bodies were a little slow,” Jazz head coach Will Hardy remarked. To put it another way, “we weren’t able to make up for that because we did not do a good enough job with our brains and mouth communicating.”
At the break, Phoenix’s 66-50 lead was thanks in large part to their 54% field goal percentage. Gordon shot 9-12 from the field in the first half, including 3 of 6 threes for a total of 21 points. Furthermore, Durant contributed 14 points and 5 assists.
