There aren’t any positive words to use when describing the Phoenix Suns following their Game 6 performance against the Denver Nuggets on Thursday night. For the second consecutive NBA postseason, the Suns were run out of their home gym in an elimination game as the Nuggets won 125-100.
In both instances, Phoenix trailed by 30 points at halftime and boos rained down from the crowd. Many people headed for the exits early as the arena emptied out during the fourth quarter with the game being decided pretty early on.
“It sucked,” Kevin Durant said. “It was a bad feeling. Embarrassing.”
Embarrassing is certainly one way to describe it. Had Cameron Payne not gone off, the score would have been even more embarrassing as he poured in 32 points. For the first time all postseason Devin Booker was shut down, as he went 4-for-13 from the field for a postseason-low 12 points.
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His stat line was nearly identical last season against the Dallas Mavericks in the elimination game when he scored 11 points on 3-of-14 shooting. However, head coach Monty Williams isn’t a fan of drawing comparisons between the two losses. The feeling is the same, but the team dynamic was different.
“I mean, it’s two different groups,” Williams said. “Last year’s team was totally different than this year’s team. Last year’s team was more of a ball-movement, body-movement team. This year we’re more pick-and-roll oriented and iso-oriented, so it’s two different situations altogether. That’s something that we need to take a look at to see what kinds of combinations of players we have to fit the style of play. But it’s hard to make assessments about those kinds of things 20 minutes after a loss.”
Making matters even tougher for the Suns this time around was that they were doing it without two starters. Point guard Chris Paul hurt his groin in Game 2 and didn’t take the court again and center Deandre Ayton was dealing with a deep rib contusion that was impacting his ability to breathe.
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Both players have been the centerpiece of rumors already swirling about changes coming this offseason. Phoenix is expected to shop Paul hard in the coming weeks while Ayton has been a trade candidate for well over a year at this point.
“We just got to be better next year,” Durant said. “It’s hard right now to see what the future will hold for our team, but we got a good foundation, good infrastructure. We can build on and move on from this and learn from it and get better from it. I’m sure as the summer and offseason starts, we’ll figure that out a little bit more.”
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There will certainly be some personnel changes as the Suns have to reconfigure the roster with players who fit better around Booker and Durant. Those two aren’t going anywhere as probably the only two players on the roster whose spots for the 2023-24 season are safe.
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