Kevin Durant Wins Return Game Over Brooklyn Nets Plus Phoenix Suns Get Their Swagger Back

Kevin Durant Wins Return Game Over Brooklyn Nets Plus Phoenix Suns Get Their Swagger Back

On today’s episode of Locked on suns the Phoenix Suns finally had a strong fourth quarter and in the process they just might have gotten their Swagger back let’s break it down you are locked on suns your daily Phoenix Suns podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every Day We are back this is locked on Phoenix Suns we are part of the locked on podcast Network and I’m your host Brendan clean a credential media member covering the Suns for the past seven seasons a writer at suns.com and the host of the just basketball show wherever you get your podcasts thank you

So much for making locked on suns your first listen post game after a Sons 136 to 120 Road W over Kevin Durant’s former team male Bridges and cam Johnson’s new team out in Brooklyn if it is your first time finding the show or you just have

Not done so already go ahead and hit follow or subscribe wherever you’re finding us we’re free and available on all platforms including YouTube so just hit that button get a new show in your feed every single Monday through Friday all season long becomeing every dayer and get locked on to the Phoenix Suns

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The show on Twitter where you can give me your seven word or less game take after each and every game I’m going to go with at Josh Ritter 13 today nerk is a Difference Maker and I think that is where we have to start so

Shout out to you Josh my seven words or less game Tak in this one would be probably nice and easy I know it might not have felt like that every single step of the way another awesome third quarter but you win the game by 16 you have the type of third quarter that

You want to have everybody chips in you execute what you want take advantage of and you win the game by double digits on the road over a team that you are much much better than that is really all it takes in the NBA regular season but as I said let’s start with nurkic

Because this was one of his strongest games of the season and there’s there’s something very special I think about a player who has the ability to take one shot I said this to locked on Sun’s Insider subscribers which you can sign up for it the link in the show

Description below and get my commentary and Analysis all day long on game days updates as far as who’s playing and who’s not and what to watch for stuff going on in the news on Twitter everywhere else straight to your phone you can respond to me all that good

Stuff sign up to the link in the show description or visit join sub text.com loock ons Sons but I said this to those folks in the postgame recap text that I sent out that nurkic is the type of player who is totally content to play to to shoot five times in one game

And then be the focal point the next game shoot 20 times and he’s going to play equally hard in both situations he’s going to execute have mental focus yes there are going to be some turnovers no matter what his role is in a given night and that is I know it sounds corny

It might sound like a given because these are all pro athletes and this and that it’s not a given and it’s something that should be be recognized and in this stretch of the game or moment of the game in the middle of the third quarter it absolutely was was important

So Spencer Den witty makes a two-point shot Midway through the second quarter all right that made the score 84 to 80 from that point on the Suns would go on a 15-1 run that would give them an 18-point lead that of course they basically would not relinquish all night

It obviously got I think to single digits early in the into the fourth quarter but never really got close after this and a big part of what ignited that run was nurkic nurkic had a pass out of a short roll situation to Josh aogi for a three-pointer to kick off this run he

Then blocked Lonnie Walker at the basket I believe that was the one that led no it wasn’t the one that led to the fast break it went onto an offensive rebound so I might not be remembering that block perfectly and then nurkic had a post hook shot off of

What I believe was one of those deep seals that he was getting all game long because the Nets were just giving up mismatches left and right even Nick claxon really is a mismatch in his own way in terms of strength and weight and all that and then from there KD just

Took over he had uh seven of the 15 points in this run and nurkic actually had a little dunk in here as well so I guess that would mean that nurkic had four points and one assist and Durant had seven points so between the two of them they either

Scored or assisted on every single bucket it’s interesting though to call that the moment of the game right it’s the lead that they took that they didn’t give up it is the two guys who obviously if you look at the box score now if you watched the

Game those are the two best players but the last thing I would highlight here is one that they were getting up and down the floor and they were sharing the ball those are two things that helped them win this game but it was actually Booker who again was

Really having control of the offense early in this game I believe he took nine shots in the first quarter and only ate the rest of the way and you’ll notice in this run he was on the court but the only involvement he had from a scoring

Standpoint is he had an assist on one of Durant’s buckets so I think there’s something impressive to be said from a balance standpoint and sort of a I’ve been talking about this for a couple of weeks now since we’ve seen the big three on the court they’re overpowering no matter what they scored

136 points tonight and I don’t think any of us would have said this was the best they’ve looked right that’s crazy but to really get to the next level I think as an offense they can’t just be overpowering they need to be smart and diligent right and what that means

Is attacking the weak points playing to the weaknesses of your opponent and I think that’s the other thing that you would have to love about this stretch is that they did that right they kept riding nkit after what he did in the second quarter they rode the hot hand

With Durant they played Up Tempo they moved the ball they found mismatches and switches and different things to exploit and they and they went to it repeatedly even if it meant Booker taking a step back which sometimes is just going to be necessary so runs like that are what great

Offenses do on a nightly basis and the Suns showed up in that way again for another 35 Plus Point third quarter which is becoming fairly normal for them we’ll get to some takeaways from this game big picture including Durant’s return and More close out the show with a special tribute

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Easy all right as I try to get focused here from my camera we are back let’s keep it rolling takeaways from this game I didn’t want to start with the fourth quarter this time because frankly it wasn’t really what decided the game even if it felt tight early but what I

Do want to say is something I guess what I want to Echo is something that Frank vogle said I believe after Monday night’s game did they play Monday am I losing my mind here Monday night’s game against the Miami Heat where he sort of it seems like accidentally said that the fourth

Quarter problems were mental but if you are an everyday or if you checked out Monday’s recap show of that Heat game or if you subscribe to the lock on suns Insider text alerts where you’ve seen me talking about this you can sign up with the link in the show description below

Or go to join sub tex.com lockon Suns you know that I was not worried about that fourth quarter either right and so I didn’t go so far as to say it was mental on Monday because I actually just thought the process was right I thought the process was accurate I just

Thought they missed some shots the heat made some contest threes and it got a little dicey but I guess an easy thing to chalk up unusual Miss shots to is mental blocks and it feels like that’s just where they are right now and so I

Think this one can be a little bit of a of a sigh of relief here now we’ve said that before right they’ve had good fourth quarters lately especially since the big three has been playing together it’s not as if every sing single night they crumble but I just think it’s about like Chris

Paul used to say stacking wins I think in this case it’s about stacking good fourth quarters and just making it not so that you feel positively about the fourth quarter you can’t train yourself to just only think positive thoughts about something it’s more so you don’t

Think about it at all I think that should be the goal right and games like this where it’s like yeah you got uh I meant to bring up in the the the the moment of the game the Kevin Durant too small and I talked in the open of the whole show about the

Swagger in that stretch in the moment of the game in that second quarter run or the third quarter run that I just broke down you had Durant holding up the little tiny finger uh sign for cam Thomas in the fourth quarter the very end of when the starters played around 23 minutes

Mark you had Booker making a fallway contested Corner three over the arms of M Bridges and Booker holding up the what am I doing with my hand uh the the three-point C that M bridges used to do right so there was a lot of swagger and

I think those types of moments are going to be the ones that add up to not even sweating these fourth quarters anymore the other thing I wanted to talk about from a a big picture why this game matters type of standpoint is the emotional connections between these teams

Right I did a segment uh I think I did one final Bridges breakout watch the long time every dayers no after the Nets came to Phoenix right and there were the tribute videos and the big three debuted and that game was way more intense than it any NBA regular

Season game ought to be uh for a lot of those reasons and this was similar although I would say the relationship between Durant and the Brooklyn fan base is probably a little bit different to say the least than the Beloved way that Bridges and Johnson are always going to be received in

Phoenix that being said Durant did get a tribute video even though he maybe didn’t want one after the game with Cassidy hubber on ESPN he was gracious you know and said that he obviously watched it and you know that he looks back fondly but the other nugget that

Made this game weird and continues to just feel Cosmic about this matchup between these two teams is that this game marked the 17th game played where all of Booker Beal and Durant shared the court that number 17 is more games than Durant Harden and Kyrie played together because of their injuries

Unbelievable well their injuries and of course you know the vaccine stuff and then the trade demands and everything else that doesn’t feel possible but it is that is the number and I guess you know as crazy as as this season may have felt for Suns fans from an injury and

Continuity standpoint it could be worse you know it could be uh it could be even fewer games played imagine if this few games that you are B your head against you know the wall feeling like you’re never watching the three stars on your favorite team play imagine if that was over the course

Of a season and a half plus a whole postseason all right just to put it into perspective but that’s neither here nor there that’s Brooklyn Nets history and that’s not what we’re here to talk about all I wanted to say about this whole idea is I think this will be the final

Game between these teams where this stuff kind of is relevant and you could kind of I almost feel like it was a symbolic thing when Booker hits that three in the corner at the end and waves his hand in in bridges’ face because Bridges was not loving that you know he

Didn’t smile and laugh and and dap book up on the way back he was pretty mad of course they’re losing and they let a a fourth quarter run slip away from them just as much as the sun obviously got it back on track but look I mean time passes it’s been

Almost a year since the trade and at a certain point as much as you cherish those memories and you might have a bond to some degree that you can look back on when you’re both retired you’re competitors now and and obviously the same goes for Durant versus any of the

Guys that he played with Cam Thomas with the little finger thing Royce O’Neal whatever you know these guys are they’re just opponents now and so I do think you’re sort of turning the page there the last part is something that I obviously I’m not once you hear me say it you’re going to

Understand that I’m not going to get to the bottom of this in three minutes here but Durant made a comment when he on Twitter said that he didn’t want the tribute video which is that he said he didn’t feel like he made a deep enough connection with the Brooklyn fan

Base to deserve it or or for it to make sense it’s a very Kevin Durant thing to say very sort of uh ethereal and heady and just maybe five degrees es skew from what you might how you might think about something he is obviously a very uh unique guy and

Thinks about things in his own way but it just had me thinking will will fans feel like he achieved enough here when it’s all said and done that’s obviously for so many reasons impossible to answer right now maybe a better question is what would it take

For fans to feel that and what would it take for him to feel that you know he did play out the first contract he signed with the Nets of course he signed an extension that he played half of one season of but he had an era there one of the years

He was recovering from a torn Achilles and really two of the years the pandemic made it hard to connect with those fans so that played a part but is there some number of years here that that would graduate him into having that that bond with the community with the fan base is

There is it a championship does it have to be a championship otherwise goodbye I don’t know of course it’s it’s all hypothetical it’s all in the future but because he thinks about things that way and because his career is analyzed through that lens and because this was

Such a massive inflection point in Sun’s history it is a fascinating question to consider and one that I think we’ll obviously all be coming back to over and over this is the guy’s First full season here and it has been chaotic in its own way so let’s hope it’s not chaotic the

Rest of the way and we can see how much this team can accomplish you know already one game more than the big three there played and that’s a good start all right a tribute to somebody important to the Suns important to this Community coming up next first Today’s Show brought to you

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Subtext but on the locked on Sons Insider feed but um and shout out to Brandon dwas who compiled a lot of tributes already over at breads side ofes sun.com which you can check out he of course is the co-host here once a week but Dave King who was the managing

Editor of Bright Side of the Sun until about four months ago 3 four months ago um passed away this weekend if you’re listening to this show if you even found the show if you even have ever consume this show I would imagine you probably

Have an idea of who this is or you maybe learned about him over the course of this week as tributes like I mentioned have poured in I thought the Suns did a very admirable Thing by addressing and and paying homage to Dave on their social feeds by way have a statement from Matt

Ishia sounds like nothing maybe but I think a lot of teams a lot of Corporations let’s say just Overlook stuff like that and I thought Matt shared some some nice words and I know he knows who Dave was because Matt was a big fan of Brightside night as was his

Brother Justin ispia who is a you know minority owner in the team they one of their first things they did when they bought the team was donate a bunch to Bright Side night to bring more kids into the game on that night last season and that’s always been one of the

Biggest things Dave took pride in and took joy in and it’ll continue without him it sounds like I thought that Devon Booker um you know again players like to pretend like actively all the time that they don’t know who media are right that uh you know they’re beneath them we are

Beneath them or it’s all um it’s all fighting and and conflict between media and players but book shared a screenshot of of of Dave on his Instagram and said you know rest easy and all that stuff and look Dave covered book since he came into the NBA um and I

Think you know maybe that’s the way to put it right that it players can kind of pretend like it’s conflict but with David wasn’t ever that right like I don’t think you can put into words you might have heard this or seen this if you’ve been paying attention

Online to or on the radio or on countless other podcasts or articles as these tributes have poured in you might have seen the idea of like the the son’s Community wouldn’t be what it was without Dave and we say that stuff right like you just say that sometimes to be

Nice they were so good at what they did or they they were such a fixture in their industry or their Community or their friend group or whatever oh we none of us would have been the same and and that’s always true to a degree but with Dave it was it’s it’s literally

True it’s literally true anybody you follow who cares about the Suns right now probably passed through Dave’s orbit in some way shape or form over the past 15 years that he was basically running Bright Side and being a funnel into Sun’s content all right phnx shout out to those guys that

Start started from a podcast that Dave began with espo andol from phnx Kellen Olsson who does fantastic work at Arizona Sports started at Bright Side of the Sun and then got and created launched this podcast and then got his gig at Arizona Sports after that I started covering

Games at lock on Sun at bright side of the sun when I was a 19-year-old and and knew nothing and I’ll get to that in a second um you know Gerald borget does great work he didn’t write up right side but was close with Dave one of the Gerald’s

One of the longest standing people covering the Suns and got to know Dave very closely I know for sure Trevor Booth who’s at clutch points does a bunch of stuff on Twitter spaces and everything he started up right side of the sun um you know team PR as I said

Book the owner of the team everybody is feeling this loss and the community online of people covering talking about I saw so many people on Twitter this week who just said I would never have joined Twitter I never would have started finding Sons fans and and Sons

Content and Sons chatter on the internet if it was not for Dave and I think even thinking of it that way is sort of crazy right that Dave took over bright side when like the internet was getting big as far as content and social media and all that go it’s it’s Unthinkable

Um how big the impact is and and obviously that’s the the greatest kind of thing you can leave is a legacy like that to know that and I don’t even know if he cares but we all know you all know that anything you’re consuming about this team any conversations you’re

Having online about this team odds are you know in some way shape or form they were touched by him and that’s that’s a lot you know not a lot of people can say that they impacted anything that way um so you know I I don’t mean to ramble I

Hope I’m at least forming some points and having a start and an end to what I’m saying here but the last thing I guess I wanted to say on this was from my personal perspective uh I tweeted a version of this but I wanted to share it

A little bit longer on the show um just that you know I said like I I know for a fact that I would not be hosting this show but this is part-time you know at the end of the day but you know the just basketball show that I host and even my

Job at awful announcing where I write about sports media like Bright Side of the Sun was the first place I ever wrote anything and now I do that for a living um writing about sports and I guess just to share I you know to share why um so I started reading brid side

When I was 14 um was a son’s fan and and cared about the team before that as a kid but you know what are you really going to do when you’re 12 years old so 14 shout out to uh Jennifer dor if she’s listening introduced me to the site and I started

Reading and interacting and commenting and floating crazy trades that I get mad at you guys for doing now probably and finally decided okay ESP nation has this cool thing it’s very fan focused let me write a fan post which I think they still have so I wrote a fan post about miles

Plumbley if you remember um the season that they won no yeah the 48 win season right that would have been 2013 14 how old was I then yeah I guess that’s probably a little bit after that so I was on it for a few years finally

Wrote this post about mouses P me and Dave put it on the front page without I don’t even think I messaged him but he would do that right so then I messaged him once I saw it cuz I was losing my mind crazy I think I was in high school

Still um so might have even maybe this timeline’s not perfect but this is how I’m remembering it and I was like thank you so much whatever and he gave me some feedback and that’s what I wanted then I wrote another piece very very very Sports take right like I was like

Whatever it was about Tyson Chandler not um I might have written stuff in between this but this is the one I remember I I said you know Tyson Chandler made some off-handed comment and I was like this is why he’s not the right vet for the team and he should

Just leave and all this like very over my skis trying to be uh big you know man on campus type of thing and I was like hey Dave you know wrote this thing let me know what you think can you please put it on the front page if you like it

Or whatever and he was like yeah this is not very good you’re being you’re being way over you’re way overdoing it and you’re being kind of disrespectful to a player and this I was like okay you don’t know what you’re talking about like I’m mad because I just was prideful

Probably you know um and then eventually like I don’t remember what I wrote another few things just got over myself a little bit and started just writing actual analysis of this stuff and you know finally he started putting more and more stuff and then he was like Hey you

Know come join the staff it’ll be unpaid but you can be more part of what we’re doing and so I would do round taes I would do little articles here and there this was back when Kellen was actually still there um and just got my toes wet

Then fast forward so that was one right then fast forward let’s say a year or two beyond that I’m doing the stuff here and there filling in I you know like that was book’s 70o Game season and all that stuff then the season that Earl Watson

Gets fired uh that summer I had been covering Mercury games somewhere else and then so I’m around the arena I’m getting to know the pr people whatever and then Dave helps me get my first credential um I believe the fall of 2017 if memory serves me correctly might have

Been the 2018 calendar year but that season and you know J Triano the bledo trade awful Team all that stuff and not only does he get me the credential because I’m a bright side staffer and he has the in um I I’m I’m a child like literally people would you

Don’t know how many people would look I mean if you’re watching on YouTube you know that I probably maybe you think I still like a child but people were like didn’t believe I should be there like so many looks from security and other people other media just being like who

On Earth is this person and why does he think he can be here he needs to like is he the GM’s son like what’s going on and Dave just showed me everything introduced me to everybody that I needed to know showed me where to be how to be

How to be professional how to I mean I don’t even remember it anymore it was just so natural it was just so much part of of all of it um running out of time but he helped me you know through so many different things with when I left

This show for a moment when I had a co-host and then getting back to it solo and trying to help me navigate what to do with that situation watched the valley oop next to him game two of the Western Conference Finals I was sandwiched between him and Trevor booth

And uh you know it just feels crazy that when I go to games or log on to Twitter or open bright side that he’s just not going to be there um it just doesn’t feel like that’s it doesn’t feel like that should be possible you know and obviously lost him you know he

He tragically early tragically young to to go through something like that and and sudden and and very short-lived that he even had to to manage it but um I wouldn’t even have the platform to give him this salute if it were not for him so I think that

Uh sort of speaks for itself so uh yeah echoing Devon Booker rest easy Dave King thank you for everything and uh if you guys you know if I’m filling you in on a person or some stories that you didn’t know I mean reach out to me if you if

You want to talk but check out the Articles check out Twitter check out the other podcasts and stuff that have been giving tributes phnx you know multiple times Espo’s done some some thoughtful stuff so uh just you know soak it in because uh it’s it’s definitely a person’s Legacy worth understanding so

Hopefully I did my part I will be back for one more show this week hit follow hit subscribe if you have not already I will catch you guys then in the meantime enjoy the win talk to tomorrow

Kevin Durant put up 33 points to lead the Phoenix Suns to a road win over the Brooklyn Nets in his return to Barclays Center.

Brendon Kleen of @justbasketballfans breaks down how playing through KD and Jusuf Nurkic led to the win and why this can help the Suns get their swagger and stack positive fourth quarters. Then, a tribute to Dave King, a pillar of the Suns community.

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