The Phoenix Suns kept their win streak alive after coming away with a close win against the shorthanded Denver Nuggets by a final score of 100-93. Kevin Durant was phenomenal tonight as he scored 30 points on an efficient 11-15 shooting. Devin Booker as well had a good game with 27 points on 9-20 shooting.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Where the problem lied however was in the second half. The Suns at one point were up by 27 and they had a big 72-45 lead to begin the second half on a 12-2 run. The Nuggets after that would go on to outscore the Suns 32-12 in the third quarter to bring the game within 10.
From that point forward, in the fourth quarter both teams had trouble knocking down shots. That was until Josh Okogie hit a corner three to basically put the game away for the Suns. After the game Monty Williams talked about the Suns rough second half and he didn’t mince words about how flat the team looked.
“We’re grateful for the win, but we can’t drop our level like that,” Monty Williams said after the game. “We should be able to put games away we held them to 40 points in the first half we only scored 40 in the second. Teams will make shots but I thought we contributed to that shot making especially in transition.”
The shot making in transition that Williams was talking about was the foul trouble they got into along with the 16 turnovers that the Nuggets forced with 9 of them coming in the second half. Kevin Durant also alluded to the transition buckets that got the Nuggets momentum going in the middle of the third quarter.
“We just let our foot off the gas just a little bit and they were just playing extremely hard,” Durant said. “They got I think two fast break open court steals and that got them going a bit and they didn’t make three’s in the first half so they made a couple there and that cut the lead and gave them some momentum.”
Devin Booker also had similar responses to both Williams and Durant and felt like with the Nuggets being out a bunch of their starters, the young guys wanted to show what they got tonight to the coaches.
“We just got complacent, got relaxed, and you know they didn’t,” Booker said. “Usually when a team is down guys, the other guys step up to the opportunity and they want to prove themselves and those guys did a good job of that tonight.”
The Suns improve their win streak to four games in a row and are a perfect 5-0 with Durant in the starting lineup. Now, the team goes to Oklahoma CIty on Sunday to take on the Thunder before returning back home in Footprint next Tuesday to take on the San Antonio Spurs.
