Well, ladies and gents, the Suns have rallied back.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Following a trailing performance of 0-2 vs. the Nuggets on the road, the Suns put together an impressive performance to tie the series.
For a grand majority of the contest, there was never really more than a 5-point distance between the two teams. Nikola Jokic would put up a commanding 53 point game, himself beating out the Suns top scorers in Devin Booker and Kevin Durant who were tied at 36 points each.
Jokic was indeed a problem on the night, but the one man can only do so much. Let’s look at the numbers.
Jokic scored 53 points on the night, going 20/30 on field goals with a percentage of 66.7%. If you take Jokic out of the Nuggets’ field goal percentage as a team on the night, they collectively were 30/59 for a little under 50%. 13 of those 30 field goals belonged to Jamal Murray. Jokic’s field goals accounted for one-fifth of the team’s scores, and without Murray and Jokic adding to the stats, the Nuggets would only see 43 points from their other players.
WATCH: Kevin Durant gives props to Nikola Jokic after 53 point performance in game 4 win.#WeAreTheValley#NBA#NBAPlayoffs https://t.co/uhNCLte1fE
— Burn City Sports (@BurnCitySports) May 8, 2023
Now the Suns.
Booker put up another impressive field goal percentage of 77.8 with 14/18 field goals made and 36 points total. This really shows that he is indeed one of the leading players of the playoffs.
“He’s been the best player of the playoffs”
Kendrick Perkins had high remarks for Devin Booker who he called a younger version of Kobe Bryant#WeAreTheValley#NBAhttps://t.co/kVzZBki7He
— Burn City Sports (@BurnCitySports) May 8, 2023
Kevin Durant also put up 36 points and had a FG% of 57.9. Durant shined behind the free-throw line, going 12/13. It’s easy to focus on the leading players of the night, and while the efforts of Jokic and Murray beat the efforts of Durant and Booker by 9 points in the head-to-head, performances like that of Landry Shamet, who scored 19 points with 6/9 field goals, 5 of them being for 3 points.
Shamet’s 3-pointers accounted for over one-third of the Suns 3 point scores. The Nuggets as a team only made 7 field goals behind the 3-point line all game.
Truly, the victory in this game came from the collective teamwork of the Suns at home. The shared effort of not just the starters, but those coming off the bench rallied the valley to tie up the series.
