Starting the game off sluggish before putting up a valiant effort in the second half, the Golden State Warriors were unable to come back from a large 17-point deficit as they fell to the Phoenix Suns 113-105.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Phoenix shot at elite clip all night long, going 38-for-79 (48.1%) from the field and 18-for-35 (51.4%) from 3. Not being able to adjust to what the Suns were throwing at them, their pick-and-roll setups and ball distribution were highly effective against the Warriors and Golden State found it difficult to stop them.
Golden State did claw back to within single digits in the second half once they made the proper adjustments, but the damage from the first half was difficult to overcome and the Warriors couldn’t dig out of the hole. The Warriors outscored the Suns 56-47 in the second half, with Steph Curry scoring 21 of his 23 points in that span.
When talking about what the Suns did that posed problems to the Warriors, Golden State forward Kevon Looney stated that the playmaking by Phoenix was able to open up scoring options and capitalize on his team’s defensive lapses.
“They put a lot of pressure on us there with the pick-and-roll with KD [Kevin Durant] and Book [Devin Booker],” Looney said postgame. “When they draw a lot of attention, they was able to get in the pocket, their bigs just making the right plays, hitting their shooters. They kinda had us in a scramble in the whole first half. We were able to make a run and had them on their heals with our rotations and we did a better job in the second half, but we got to do that the whole game.”
In the Suns win without Bradley Beal and Jusuf Nurkić, Durant recorded a double-double with 21 points and 10 rebounds despite shooting 7-for-20 (35.0%) overall and 3-f0r-8 (37.5%) from 3. Booker led the Suns with 27 points, Tyus Jones had 19 points and nine assists and Grayson Allen scored 17 points in his first start of the season.
Coming off the bench, Looney, a three-time NBA champion, was a perfect 4-for-4 from the field and totaled nine points, six rebounds and one assist.
Golden State is on a four-game losing streak and are trying to find answers as to how the team can snap out of its current funk. While they did play, Curry (bilateral knee patellofemoral pain), Jonathan Kuminga (illness), Gary Payton II (right adductor tightness) and Andrew Wiggins (right ankle impingement) have been dealing with injuries and the lingering effects from them.
After starting the season 12-3 and dropping the last four games, it doesn’t get any easier for the Warriors to quickly resolve their recent sturggles as they next face NBA superstar Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets (10-7) on Tuesday in the NBA Cup.
Takeaways from Suns getting past Steph Curry, Warriors 113-105
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Reporter Alec Cipollini covers the Phoenix Mercury, Suns and ASU Athletics for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on his X account, @AlecCipollini
