Surprising “body language” from Bradley Beal. Coming out of a timeout, two minutes from the end of the match against the Nets, the former Wizards player keeps his hands on his hips. The Suns led by six points, Devin Booker tries his luck from far behind the arc, in vain, and Bradley Beal remains static in the corner, in the same posture.
In the last quarter of this match, the new arrival stayed there for a long time, without being served much: he was only able to try his luck once. In the first quarter, it was Devin Booker who surprisingly did not take a single shot (a first for him since… 2015), preferring to feed his playing partners, including Bradley Beal (14 points at 6/9 in the shots).
During this time, Kevin Durant better distributed his shot attempts, having the greatest volume (27 points at 9/18 on shots). The three men had to wait until the 24th match of their season to finally be lined up together. And everything was not easy for them.
Chain matches
“ Basketball is something unpredictable. Who knows ? It is not possible to know precisely when we will have the trigger. Maybe it will be tomorrow, maybe in two weeks. But I know that we will come to work and try to find the best possible solution “, Kevin Durant posterthereby conceding that cohesion between them is therefore not yet relevant.
So the winger bets on the “ reps, more games, more possessions together “. “ There is clearly a balance (to find). I'm not the type to say to myself: 'Let's put it off until later and we'll see when the playoffs come around.' I realize the importance of all these matches », agrees Devin Booker who came out of his initial silence to finish best (34 points on 9/15 on shots) and passer (12) of the meeting.
He has already been able to notice that there is “ so much space, so many opportunities » which are offered to them, when the three men are together on the floor.
Like this sequence in the first quarter when Kevin Durant and Devin Booker were successively caught together at the head of the racket. Until Bradley Beal was served with plenty of space in front of him, before going on a quiet “pull-up” for him.
Learn lessons
“ It’s a first step for us, to get together again. We learn from it and we continue to move forward », Formulates the Suns back, repositioned as a playmaker, before adding: “ We don't want to get carried away or let ourselves be defeated. We go on a winning streak and the team feels like they're on top of the world and there's nothing wrong. Then we lose three games in a row and we feel like we're not going to make the playoffs. We can't be that kind of team. »
“ Anyone who knows basketball knows that it takes time. We're not going to be perfect. It's never like that. But I'm very happy that they are together again. We still have guys (Eric Gordon, Josh Okogie…) unfortunately absent. But we just need to repeat things », Also displays Jusuf Nurkic.
Similar speech for Suns technician Frank Vogel, who says he wants to stay “ positive » while waiting to find the springs, « press certain buttons », to make the most of this frightening “Big Three” on paper.
| Shots | Rebounds | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | MJ | Min | Shots | 3pts | L.F. | Off | Def | Early | Pd | Bp | Int | Ct | Party | Pts |
| Kevin Durant | 19 | 36.7 | 52.1 | 50.0 | 89.2 | 0.3 | 6.2 | 6.5 | 5.7 | 3.6 | 0.7 | 1.2 | 1.9 | 31.0 |
| Devin Booker | 14 | 34.8 | 48.3 | 43.3 | 92.0 | 1.0 | 5.1 | 6.1 | 8.0 | 3.1 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 3.3 | 27.7 |
| Bradley Beal | 4 | 28.2 | 39.7 | 33.3 | 69.6 | 0.8 | 4.0 | 4.8 | 3.5 | 3.0 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 3.0 | 17.0 |
| Eric Gordon | 21 | 32.0 | 46.3 | 39.9 | 82.4 | 0.3 | 1.7 | 2.0 | 2.9 | 1.6 | 1.0 | 0.6 | 1.5 | 14.2 |
| Grayson Allen | 19 | 33.1 | 48.1 | 46.8 | 89.5 | 0.7 | 3.8 | 4.5 | 2.9 | 1.5 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 2.3 | 12.3 |
| Jusuf Nurkic | 23 | 28.1 | 46.0 | 28.1 | 72.4 | 2.7 | 6.6 | 9.3 | 4.0 | 2.0 | 1.0 | 1.2 | 3.6 | 12.0 |
| Jordan Goodwin | 23 | 17.6 | 40.7 | 33.8 | 87.0 | 1.1 | 2.8 | 4.0 | 2.3 | 0.8 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 1.3 | 6.8 |
| Drew Eubanks | 22 | 17.8 | 59.2 | 100.0 | 83.9 | 1.5 | 3.1 | 4.5 | 1.4 | 1.2 | 0.2 | 1.0 | 2.1 | 6.5 |
| Josh Okogie | 23 | 21.4 | 41.7 | 27.5 | 76.7 | 1.7 | 1.7 | 3.4 | 1.2 | 0.8 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 1.3 | 6.5 |
| Keita Bates Diop | 20 | 18.1 | 40.0 | 26.3 | 71.9 | 1.0 | 2.2 | 3.2 | 0.9 | 0.3 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 1.0 | 5.5 |
| Nassir Little | 16 | 14.3 | 48.3 | 33.3 | 87.5 | 0.5 | 1.6 | 2.1 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 1.2 | 5.2 |
| Yuta Watanabe | 17 | 18.4 | 35.9 | 35.9 | 69.2 | 0.5 | 1.7 | 2.2 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 1.6 | 5.2 |
| Chimezie Metu | 13 | 9.8 | 52.6 | 33.3 | 75.0 | 0.2 | 1.6 | 1.8 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 1.2 | 4.0 |
| Saben Lee | 4 | 2.8 | 57.1 | 0.0 | 100.0 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 2.5 |
| Udoka Azubuike | 2 | 4.3 | 100.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 1.0 |
| Bowl Bowl | 5 | 2.4 | 50.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.0 | 0.4 | 0.0 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.4 |
