Phoenix Suns center Deandre Ayton (22) celebrates with guard Chris Paul (3) after scoring a basket against the Toronto Raptors during the second half of an NBA basketball game on Friday, March 26, 2021 in Tampa, Florida. (AP Photo / Chris O’Meara)
The Phoenix Suns played keys on Friday night, but they were lucky that there was not an extra minute or two on the clock.
They scored one out of 104-100 against the Toronto Raptors thanks to clutch moments like Deandre Ayton’s block, Chris Paul and Devin Booker’s free throws, and Mikal Bridges’ offensive rebound to secure victory.
“Just a lot of big, grind-out games tonight,” said head coach Monty Williams.
Phoenix needed it, however, as after Paul’s midrange jumper with 6:18 left crossed the Suns 98-88 with 6:18, the Suns scored six points for the remainder of the game and had only one field goal. Paul and Booker combined to go 4-of-4 from the foul line in the last minute.
A game after a defeat to the Orlando Magic in which the Suns recorded 20 points in the fourth quarter, it was Friday 21.
“I liked everything until the fourth quarter,” Williams said of the offensive execution. “We scored 21 points, however [Toronto] only 23 scored. “
Williams went on to describe a brand of playoff basketball that broke out in that fourth quarter, calling it a “ slugfest. ”
One contributing factor has been Booker’s funk since the last 12 minutes.
In a series of events we haven’t seen of him so far in his fledgling career, Booker is 3-of-18 off the field in the fourth quarter of the last seven games. He went 0-for-4 against the Raptors and missed two shots with the Suns at two and less than 70 seconds to go.
That last miss was one that took Bridges with six seconds to go and then the Suns called time-out. The inbound went to Booker, who, to his credit, sank both free throws to seal it.
Booker now shoots 39.9% in the last frame of the season and 30.4% in the clutch, or the last five minutes of a game when the score is within five points. He’s proven himself as a pairs player in Phoenix for six years, and when asked if he’s noticed anything special in his movie over the past few games, Booker said he hadn’t even noticed.
“The wins are coming in,” he said. “That is the main goal every night. I’ve shown that I’ve scored basketball for many years, so whatever I have to do to win: if it’s defensive, offensive, lead by example, lead with your vote. We have a selfless team. We can win with one point, we can win with 20 – I’ll be happy anyway. “
And he’s been a very lucky man this year as the Suns improved to 30-14 with the win.
Booker finished with 16 points, six rebounds, and two assists on 6-of-14 shots. When you combine Booker’s shot attempts and assists to a number of 16, that’s the lowest it has been in 24 games, testament to Toronto head coach Nick Nurse’s game plan to limit his impact.
Up to that point, the nurse gave the Suns a variety of defensive looks. The core principles helped Booker to a great extent in the dribble penetration to force the Phoenix shooters to make plays and collapse on Ayton’s pole hits as soon as he dribbled the ball to force him to make decisions.
The Raptors won a championship because of their ability to do this sort of thing as defense, like having the defenders furthest from the action in all the right places to help out and then having the ability to scramble and recover from there. They are far from a championship-quality defense, however, and the Suns were able to poke holes in them routinely enough.
With that in mind, the Suns still only fired 9 of 36 (25.0%) from three-point range, so that part of Nurse’s plan was successful too.
But Ayton didn’t matter much, because he was assertive and behaved like the greatest man on the field, whatever he was. As Toronto grew small and put the tall and strong 6-foot-7 OG Anunoby on him, Ayton went 9-for-12 with 19 points and nine rebounds.
His defense continues to rise in the last six games and back on track to the level he played last year. That aforementioned block on Toronto’s Pascal Siakam was a great game with less than two minutes to go:
Ayton attributed his technique with his hands and feet, while he said that Williams told him about it.
A strong first half from Paul and contributions from all over the bank helped the Suns win.
Paul finished the evening with 19 points, six rebounds, eight assists and two steals. Langston Galloway (eight points), Cam Johnson (seven), Cam Payne (four) and Dario Saric (eight) all scored at least two field goals, while Johnson (three assists), Payne (two) and Torrey Craig (three) combined eight of them. the 26 assists of the Suns.
The Raptors’ biggest lead in the game was four points and they were behind for the entire second half. Siakam did well with 26 points and 11 rebounds, plus six assists.
As the Suns approached the end of the four-game road trip with a Sunday matinee match in Charlotte against the Hornets, avoiding another lost streak for the last two and a half months, even with the way the win was achieved. Friday is always positive.
“I’d rather have an ugly win than a nice loss,” said Williams.