Classic Kevin Durant Leads Phoenix Suns To Home W Over Jazz Plus What Royce O’Neale Adds
Episode number two for you on this Thursday going into Friday the Phoenix Suns made a trade on Thursday they also beat the Utah Jazz Kevin Durant a classic performance another step toward becoming the best offense in the NBA and a lot of comments about how Rose O’Neil fits on
The Suns we’ll break it all down let’s go you are locked on suns your daily Phenix Suns podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every Day and we’re back this is lockon Phoenix Suns we are part of the lock on podcast Network 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 podcast say big thank you for making locked on suns your first listen post game after a 129 115 Suns win over the Utah Jazz if you have not already hit follow or subscriber wherever you’re finding us we are free and available everywhere including YouTube when you
Hit that button you get a new show in your feed every single Monday through Friday where you can be coming every dayer and get locked on to the Phoenix Suns with the show all season long 129 to 115 again is the final score and we’re going to mix things up a little
Today outside of the moment of the game because the Suns just really LED this one wire to wire we just got to sit back and celebrate Kevin Durant this was one of those nights where it really makes you honestly for me and I know there’s a
Lot of you guys listening it made me realize why Kevin Durant has stands uh truly truly because uh maybe it was also watching the Kevin uh the Kobe Bryant statue stuff pregame and him being on my mind and obviously him having his own generation of uh of people who really
Came to love basketball because of Kobe and Durant is just one of those guys and you know I I tweeted a very nerdy thing back when Durant got acquired a year ago where I said uh do you ever just sit back and think about how we get to watch
Kevin Durant play basketball all spring I think I might have said and also watch the last season of succession CU again I’m a nerd but with Durant that’s what it’s it’s what it’s like it’s just he’s one of those players and Booker can be like this too but Durant’s
More consistent with it for sure where this is a perfect example of a game like this right Thursday post trade deadline one of the best players on the team out depleted because of the deals you made it’s the Jazz not exactly the sexiest team not a bad team not like
Tanking where the game’s just going to suck but mediocre and it’s just there’s so many other players in this league even very good players where you watch cuz you love it you love the team you love the sport you you love rooting for something but it doesn’t it
Doesn’t really matter you’re not that entertained and you don’t really remember it Kevin Durant in this game made you remember it he had I believe 17 maybe 19 in the first quarter 29 at half I believe is that right maybe 29 at the end of the third
Quarter I believe he only made one basket in the fourth and the dunk on Taylor Hendrick the crossover in into the soaring dunk his I mean look we talk about the negative body language and that’s gotten a lot of attention this season and occasionally by me but um I never
Thought he wanted to get traded or anything but I’m going to go ahead and highlight the the positive body language now Durant was hyped in this game Beal got hot from Deep early he when Durant was on the bench during some of that flurry he was up and pumping his fist and
Getting everybody else hyped and and yelling and same thing when Eric Gordon hit a transition three in the second quarter Durant didn’t even make it to half court but the minute Gordon hit the shot Durant was smacking the ground and and getting everybody fired up as well then there were countless moments like
That in this game and he just get gets he just gets psyched for this stuff and the way you know is that in games where he is feeling that energy he for media from a media standpoint he usually will then speak before Frank vogle so if you’re not
Familiar the coach always speaks first the players maybe take a shower cool off do whatever and then they’ll come out after him or before Co they didn’t come out at all we went to the locker room after the coach was done speaking now they come to the podium but Durant will do it
First and he did that again tonight and it’s it shouldn’t be a surprise it shouldn’t shock anybody why I mean this guy I mean points-wise you know it’s as high as as any scoring season he had dating back to his OKC days you know
28.3 you know he was at 30 per game in 2022 last year he was technically at 29.1 overall but as a sun that was down a little bit the Golden State years and his first season in Brooklyn he was around 26 he hasn’t had a a scoring
Season a a season where he was this healthy is is May maybe the better way to put what I’m saying this healthy and this produ Ive and this efficient because the last the 30 point per game season in Brooklyn was on 52% shooting he’s shooting 54% from the field right now 46% from
Three that combination of stuff you really are going back to Oklahoma City you know and I’ve talked about the dunks he had that one more on Hendrick today and it’s it’s infectious it is uh it can’t be wasted either I mean this guy’s 35 and the fact that he’s doing
This should not be overlooked cannot be overlooked cannot be wasted and so yeah you know the the fact that the you know we’ll talk about it at the end of the show but Frank vogle shouted out Matt ishbia for being willing to add salary today in the at the
Deadline you have to you know um when you have a guy rolling like this it it demands that it’s met with investment on the part of the organization but I would you know Circle back to round this whole thing out it is just one of those things that you have to
Appreciate as a viewer like just straight up it’s just entertainment at the end of the day it is watching somebody at the peak of what they do and kind of perfect that it would come a year after right just a game like this I’m not saying look maybe you will
Forget this one maybe I’ll forget this one but the moment of the game would have to be the the dunk on Hendrick of course and I was going to go with that but that the game was out of hand already so I I thought you know what every night has moments like that
Every night is full of moments like that with this guy and so starting an All-Star Game set up for a good postseason run doesn’t get much better than that and uh maybe I’m uh maybe I’m on my way to becoming a stand now that I did that little
Say next last week we checked in on the Suns and whether they were the best offense in the NBA I still don’t think they are but I said they needed to become a smart offense rather than just an overpowering offense and tonight was another example of that we’ll break that down
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Guaranteed fit only available to us customers eligible items only exclusions apply keeping the show rolling let’s talk about the offense overall because on top of Durant being just an efficient turbocharge version of himself the Suns offense fits that same description all right 59% from the field
Only got up 293s you know still still something to monitor but but 14 of 29 you’ll take that for sure and then most importantly biggest stat of all 37 assists compared to just 12 turnovers I mean that’s three to one that’s pretty damn good but on top of
Whatever you want to say about the ratio 37 assists is Bonkers 37 assists on 52 made baskets three guys with seven or more assists including four 14 for Grayson Allen and the whole starting lineup had at least three I mean that is all you could ask for so again smart versus overpowering
Right the postseason is about solving your opponent the postseason is about finding answers for what they’re doing to you and adjusting and being able to identify those is obviously the first step and sometimes that has to happen in game doesn’t always give you don’t always have the
Benefit of the day between games to craft a new game plan or frankly even halftime the players have to identify it right and so tonight we saw a few versions of that I thought number one and this is not exactly the most uh undercover thing but
For a lot of each game the Jaz start John Collins at Center or they played John Collins at Center they had been starting him Kessler started today for the first time in a long time and the sun said great let’s put nurkic in the post and back into
You and it worked of course it worked that’s part of why nage didn’t have a lot of assists today he got to the free throw line five times only made two which is not what you would like to see but he was productive he he got the job done he
Executed okay it’s obvious so what they got to it quickly they identified it and they went they spammed it right they went over and over back to it so that’s one the other one which Frank vogle identified postgame two is transition scoring this team the Suns had 30 fast
Break points and maybe most impressively is only 20 of those were off of turnovers right so that means the sun’s got and fast break points is different than transition efficiency right some of that stuff can be graded a little bit different so the fact that the sun’s got 10 fast
Break points that were not off of turnovers means that they were running off of missed shots they were running maybe off of made shots at times and that’s great news right that shows the level of pace that helps you get those assists up and easy shots and everything else some of
The nerkish seals against smaller Jazz Defenders were also in transition just getting into the paint posting up whoever was there and getting easy baskets that way I mentioned the Gordon Corner three in transition that that hyped Durant up all of the above again excuse me sorry again not
Reinventing the wheel not the most sophisticated possible game plan here but again sticking to it and finding different ways to exploit it and everybody being committed sometimes it’s as easy as that right I mean you think back to the Denver Series last year the two games the suns were able to
Win and any of the success they had period was largely because they played quickly Booker was beating the Denver help defense down the court you know there was the touchdown pass to Durant there were countless moments with either or both of them attacking downhill in transition it
Committing to that is a weapon and so that should not be overlooked either the other and there was a few other ones right matchup wise the who which Sunstar was attacking and who they were attacking was a little bit of a subplot in this one right so they had nobody to
Guard Durant so that was pretty easy outside of Chris Dunn so I thought that was kind of interesting right at one point when Beal was still in the game the Jazz moved done to be guarding Durant instead of Beal but then they both both Beal and
Dunn checked out which I thought was a little bit of a mistake on the Jazz’s part I know he doesn’t play a lot of minutes but he’s kind of the perfect Durant Defender right somebody a little smaller who can get under him but who has quick hands and is strong and has
Length I mean we know we saw like Bruce Brown do a decent job against Durant at times in the postseason D is very similar but when they did that Durant was able to quickly identify okay this is not this is no longer I’m hot right
Now but that’s no longer going to be how we run things it’s just me isoing or posting up or whatever so they got off of it and moved things around then when he checked out you know Durant picked up where he left off it’s going to be those little things so you
Know every game’s different this team can put up a lot of free throws there will be nights when they put up a lot of Threes we know they can struggle with turnovers obviously Booker brings a different dimension the ball and the pace the ball movement and the pace look they’re not the same
In these games when Booker has been in so how can he watch games like this and and fit into it they’re getting there but be on the lookout for how they are cycling between different plans of action how they are executing the game plan how they are attacking certain
Defenders that is going to be even more valuable in the postseason than their overall Talent we got Durant Grayson Allen and Frank vogel’s thoughts on reyce O’Neal now that the trade is official I’ll tell you what they said and what I make of it next first Today’s Show brought to you by Nissan
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Deadline had passed so either the trade happened or it didn’t happen and either way it’s not going to be tampering or something whatever doesn’t matter he did comment on it post game here’s how I would contextualize or summarize what they all said and and where I’m at with O’Neal after what like
10 and a half hours to Stew on it I think it’s more of the same okay and that might sound negative I don’t mean it to sound negative more of the same meaning is he a GameChanger on defense is he going to be you know Marcus Smart or Drew holiday for this team
No defensively no offensively is he miles Bridges even you know just to use that example that comparison no he’s not he’s not even miles Bridges but he fits the style of how this team wants to play meaning that if you look at the places he’s already Ben Utah
Where it’s funny we all talk about it with Quinn Snyder Suns fans got eigor koskov from that coaching tree a while ago their offense is praised but it’s not exactly complicated a lot of the time it is just drive and kick drive and kick drive and kick maybe there’s some initial action
To get into that some screen one guy then set a screen for another guy and then you know the off ball Shooters are rotating in a specific way but pretty simplistic Brooklyn even more so you know with Kyrie and KD that team was very isolation heavy
So O’Neal will be able to slide into the style of offense that this Suns team is playing which is primarily draw help move the ball get open shots there’s a few different ways they do that you know pick and roll isolation post up sometimes just one of their guys one of their star
Players Crossing half court becomes like a double team and they just move it off that playing uptempo hit aad passes transition stuff it’s it’s really just hunting those opportunities and playing off of the talent that they have O’Neal should be able to do that as both parts of it right AO
When he’s open but also one of the people who can create those opportunities he is a passer you know he is somebody who has averaged three four assists in this league and that sounds like not a lot but I mean I’m look I still have Kevin Durant’s basketball
Reference page up it wasn’t until year seven year six that Durant averaged four assists a game that’s not a skill set everybody has so the way that Grayson Allen has thrived here the way that Eric Gordon has been able to fit in even bull bow frankly it’s because they can play that style
So we’ll see what they do on the buyout Market again join tex.com lockon Sons or click the the link in the show description below to join the locked on Sons Insider community be in the know about the Suns all the time as the buyout Market develops I would like to see them
Get a big and maybe another perimeter Defender if they did that I might feel good my number one goal with the deadline was to improve the defense I’m not fully convinced O’Neal is going to do that but he gives them one more player who can do exactly what what this team wants to
Do a lot of other teams around the NBA would give up a lot to have that you know the Bucks didn’t really get to make that move we’ll see if Patrick Beverly ultimately makes a dent in their upside but you know Milwaukee is a perfect example Golden State the
Lakers there weren’t moves out there for them they could have gotten Royce O’Neal you know I’m not trying to say that but upgrading at a spot you need with a player who fits that’s the whole name of the game even if it’s not a game Cher and the familiarity doesn’t hurt
Either both Grayson very early on and KD have played with him you know I think that helps I really do I’m sure Eric Gordon has some familiarity from their battles against one another so I think it’ll be a nice solid fit that does make an impact and that
Seemed to be the consensus Allen said you know move the ball make threes play defense Durant said effectively the same thing the ball movement was a big part of it he said he’s a good teammate he shouldn’t have any problems fitting in here vogle said vocal pointed out a lot of the
Stuff I was saying about the Jazz you know and said he’s going to be a defensive piece much more than he’s going to be somebody who adjusts our whole game plan sometimes that’s all you need that’ll wrap us up for show number two here on this Thursday night enjoy your
Friday enjoy the weekend if there is anything huge from Suns Warriors I may do a bonus show Sun Saturday night or Sunday morning also may just try to take some time to myself either way keep up with all it on join sub tex.com loock ons Suns join the locked on suns Insider
Community be in the know about the Suns all the time over there straight to your phone text alerts on all of it follow And subscribe to this show if you don’t already and I will talk to you guys soon
Kevin Durant was in his bag as the Phoenix Suns scored a double-digit home win over the Utah Jazz.
Brendon Kleen of @justbasketballfans discusses another great KD night plus the development of the Suns’ offense. Then, a recap of what Durant, Frank Vogel and Grayson Allen said about Royce O’Neale and what he adds to the Suns.
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1 Comment
When is Devin Booker said to come back