Phoenix Suns Big Three Lead Team to Victory in 117-110 Win Over Pacers

This is exactly what could be expected, and had barely been seen until now, from the Phoenix Suns’ atomic big three. That all the limitations and contradictions of rotation and the creation of a team with three such monumental salaries were thrown out the window by the pure talent of the stars. An all-or-nothing suicide squad format that’s finally shining. In part, of course, because those stars are finally on the track, together and with continuity.

This was only the tenth game of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal together, an impossible sight to see in the first third of the season. And things start to come together, to work. After beating (117-110) with difficulty (yes) the Pacers without Tyrese Haliburton (yes), the Suns are 24-18, they have five wins in a row and ten in thirteen games. They are seventh in the West but they have already hunted the sixth, the Mavericks, and are a hand’s breadth away from the fifth, the Pelicans. That is an interesting fight on the second floor of the West, far from a noble floor in which Wolves, Thunder, Nuggets and Clippers have distanced themselves (for now).

The Pacers came into the game with the same losses and now they have one more (24-19). They are also seventh, tied with sixth, in their case in the East. They have four defeats in five games, basically because in six of the last seven Haliburton, the team’s watchword, has not been able to play. His only appearance was to have a first contact with Pascal Siakam, the second newcomer star. But muscle problems once again took the point guard out of the game plan in Phoenix. So Siakam has to continue waiting to score his first win with his new team, which in any case had very serious options until the end.

After holding on without falling out of the game, Carlisle’s team pushed in a final quarter in which only the genius of Kevin Durant (13 of the Suns’ first 15 points) held the hosts back. A partial score of 0-11 put the game at 103-105 with 3:20 left and after almost three minutes without points from anyone. But there, in those gibberish of the last quarters in which they always lost in the first half of the season, this time the Suns emerged due to the pure talent of their stars. First Durant scored a triple that stopped the bleeding (106-105), then Bradley Beal added three baskets and an assist when the game was 107-107. Incisive in the zone and aggressive with the ball in his hands, finally with a good feeling physicality and traces of the enormous scorer he was on the Wizards.

The big three contributed 91 of the team’s 117 points. An outrage that, if things continue like this, we will have to get used to. Beal finished with 25 points and a brilliant 11/16 shooting and it took Booker much more (9/24) to reach 26. But the key was a Durant in supernova format, in an exceptional moment and capable of playing more than 40 minutes without seeing, at 35 years old and with many injuries, his production affected (at least, in the short term). KD left the Pacers without answers: 40 points (and 9 rebounds) with 18/25 shooting and without going to the line even once. An old school exhibition, without free throws and with an incessant rain of silk suspensions, from one of the best scorers of all time. One that, at this level, makes the Suns contenders, with Booker and Beal as squires and Grayson Allen and Jusuf Nurkic completing a quintet that finally works.

Siakam finished with 15 points, he left flashes of everything he could give to the Pacers on offense (when Haliburton returns…) and he was the only one who tickled Durant (until he was fouled out). His physicality helped a defense that Andrew Nembhard and Aaron Nesmith worked hard on. Buddy Hield scored 18 points with five triples and rookie Jarace Walker (10 points, 9 rebounds) once again played good minutes, a number 8 in the last draft who is finally beginning to take steps, finally, in the rotation of some Pacers who could not count this time with the points of another of his young mainstays, Bennedict Mathurin (4, 1/8 in shots).

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2024-01-22 05:04:45
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