Jordan Ott: Phoenix Suns Must Learn From Thunder Defense After 125-114 Loss to Oklahoma City Thunder

The Phoenix Suns lost 125-114 to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday at Paycom Center, with Devin Booker held to three points two nights after he scored 43 against Golden State.

“That’s where it all starts with us. If we can’t get the ball under control and get into the paint, then we can’t get any rhythm.”

“I thought we did a good job on the glass at times. We kind of fixed that for a certain period of time. But we weren’t quite able to get it under control tonight.”

“He just was not himself tonight. Not that something happened as far as an injury or anything like that. He just was not himself tonight.”

“That’s what they do. They send you multiple bodies. At different times of the game, it felt like there were three guys on him. When he passed it out, one guy got an opportunity right from that pass.”

“It’s a good lesson for us, seeing some film and some defenses like that again early in this season. We’ll take a look, fix it.”

“I think we got some high-quality looks. That’s what we’re always searching for. Obviously, we want our best player to be in attack mode. Sometimes when they’re sending bodies like that, the best move is just to make the next one. Our quality of looks was pretty good.”

“We left five 3s up against this group. That’s kind of what you want to do. You want to shoot as many threes as you can get, a bunch of catch-and-shoot, 35 or 37 catch-and-shoot looks.”

“So what we’re trying to do offensively is that, and then we played a lot by taking the ball out of bounds. They set the defense. He was to initiate, create the first one. So it’s about the balance, creating off the ball.”

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D. Brooks SF 3

19 PTS, 5 REB, 5 AST

A. Mitchell SG 25

30 PTS, 2 REB, 5 AST

Suns

STARTERS	PTS	REB	AST	FG	3PT	FT	PF	MIN	STL	BLK	TO	+/-	FPTS
J. Green	20	4	4	8/13	1/3	3/4	1	30	0	1	1	-11	32
D. Brooks	19	5	5	4/14	3/10	8/12	3	32	3	1	0	-12	38
M. Bridges	17	8	4	7/17	2/10	1/2	2	31	1	0	3	-17	31
K. Maluach	12	7	1	5/10	0/1	2/2	4	25	1	1	4	-3	19
D. Booker	3	2	7	1/7	0/2	1/1	3	33	0	0	0	-12	19

BENCH	PTS	REB	AST	FG	3PT	FT	PF	MIN	STL	BLK	TO	+/-	FPTS
J. Goodwin	12	4	2	4/9	4/8	0/0	3	17	0	0	0	-10	20
L. Kennard	9	1	2	3/5	3/5	0/0	3	16	0	0	0	-5	14
C. Gillespie	9	1	2	3/9	3/8	0/0	3	23	2	0	2	-15	14
R. Dunn	6	2	1	2/4	1/2	1/2	1	13	0	1	1	+6	10
D. Reath	5	3	0	1/1	1/1	2/2	1	6	0	1	1	+3	8
J. Bouyea	2	0	1	1/1	0/0	0/0	0	2	0	0	0	+7	4
K. Peat	0	0	0	0/0	0/0	0/0	0	2	0	0	0	+7	0
R. Fleming	0	1	0	0/1	0/0	0/0	0	2	0	0	0	+7	1
D. Timme	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
P. Spencer	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
Total	114	38	29	39/91	18/50	18/25	24	–	7	5	12	–	139

1 2 3 4 T  Suns 1-2 27 26 32 29 114  Thunder 4-0 33 34 32 26 125

Paycom Center Oklahoma City, OK

Thunder

STARTERS	PTS	REB	AST	FG	3PT	FT	PF	MIN	STL	BLK	TO	+/-	FPTS
A. Mitchell	30	2	5	10/16	1/3	9/10	4	25	0	1	1	+18	42
S. Gilgeous-Alexander	26	3	3	11/18	1/5	3/4	5	30	0	2	4	+10	33
J. McCain	18	3	4	6/14	4/7	2/3	1	29	1	1	2	+6	29
I. Hartenstein	15	13	3	6/7	0/0	3/3	2	25	0	0	1	-2	33
K. Williams	3	7	0	1/6	0/2	1/1	1	23	1	1	0	0	12

BENCH	PTS	REB	AST	FG	3PT	FT	PF	MIN	STL	BLK	TO	+/-	FPTS
A. Mara	11	10	2	4/6	0/0	3/4	5	19	0	2	4	+14	23
A. Caruso	9	2	3	3/5	3/5	0/0	0	9	0	0	0	+14	17
B. Stirtz	7	1	1	1/6	1/4	4/4	1	24	0	0	2	+2	8
J. Williams	6	6	3	2/5	2/4	0/0	0	25	1	0	1	+8	18
B. Barnhizer	0	0	0	0/0	0/0	0/0	0	2	0	0	0	-7	0
J. Dix	0	1	0	0/3	0/2	0/0	1	22	0	0	1	-8	0
M. Peavy	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
Total	125	48	24	44/86	12/32	25/29	20	–	3	7	16	–	149