Bradley Beal Breaks Out As the Phoenix Suns Score Another Signature Win Over Lakers

Bradley Beal Breaks Out As the Phoenix Suns Score Another Signature Win Over Lakers

The Phoenix Suns got another signature win and Bradley Beal finally made his presence felt on today’s episode of lockon suns why this is what a big three win is supposed to feel like let’s go you are locked on suns your daily Phoenix Suns podcast part of the locked

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The show but let’s get right to it Phoenix Suns win 127 to 109 part of me was tempted to record this a little bit early but I uh didn’t want to jinx anything and the Suns did make it a little bit interesting the lead was under 20 at one point in the

Fourth quarter but then felt like Durant uh hitting the bench actually ended up proving to be a some good Voodoo for the Suns and They carried it home with uh an 18o Victory and a and a game where they led by 30 or more for large stretches

But where we’re going to go first for our moment of the game which is where we always start is the third quarter that of course is when the sun scored 39 points but we need to get more specific than that right as we do so what this quarter showed was something in Bradley

Beal’s Arsenal that I don’t think had been tapped into yet and that’s why that’s why it was so big in addition to just being a master class he scored 20 points in this quarter 20 of his 37 came in the third but uh even more impressively again something we had not seen

Before was his two-man game with with Kevin Durant and normally when I would say those two names together right what would we think Twan game with a guard and a forward you would think Bradley Beal was the guy orchestrating that right but that was not the case it was Kevin

Durant handling the ball and it was Bradley Beal screening and again Beal scored 20 points here three of Durant’s five assists came during this stretch okay I don’t know why we had not seen this before but man do I hope we see it again because it’s lethal the reason it’s so effective

Is or there’s a lot of reasons right I mean one the IQ of both of those guys the unselfishness of both of those guys the shot making Talent at all three levels of of both of those guys of course that’s it’s kind of baked in I

Don’t want to I don’t want to understate things obviously they special talents and that’s why it even is an option in the first place but the reason that that particular grouping and that setup with Durant handling it is so lethal is you cannot switch it right it

Would be the same if beel was handling but they clearly wanted to get Beal on the move a little bit in motion and take advantage of his stop and start stop and go game his ability and kind of the footwork to get jumpers off at odd angles on a dime

And just to create more flow in the offense and frankly Durant has been the most reliable playmaker for this team when you look at the season as a whole and when you cannot switch it the reason I say that is those guys are different sizes a lot of the time especially with

Booker sort of being the nominal point guard for this team Booker and Duran are being guarded by similar sized players right think about tonight reddish and Prince or at times Vanderbilt and Prince even Vanderbilt and and Davis Vanderbilt and James reddish and James Prince like the Lakers do that to you

But because the Suns had such a clear emphasis on attacking off Austin Reeves and because Beal a lot of the time is going to be guarded by weaker Defenders whoever that might be throw in Max Christie D’Angelo Russell the suns were smart about poking at the right matchups tonight and the

Beal Durant pick and roll allows them to do that and it can go either way right because when Durant does have the ball in his hands you don’t have to worry about throwing an entry pass once he gets his me his mismatch the same way we saw the sun

Struggle to consistently do early on and he can just go to work but otherwise again in the flow and the rhythm of setting a screen and popping setting a screen and rolling like Beal was doing he’s already in motion and most of the time the bigger

Guys who are now switched on to him can’t keep up Beal’s quickness is one of the things that makes him Elite and so you kind of add all of that together and you get a pretty damn near un unguardable action now it’s unguardable tonight because the Lakers weren’t ready

For it because again the Suns hadn’t gone to it enough even though and the reason I said enough or criticized them for not doing it yet is the Wizards did this constantly porzingis as a ball handler kozma as a ball handler Beal even as a ball handler different types

Of dribble handoff pick and roll all sorts of different two-man actions with those three some Duo within that Trio and so it’s unguardable once you know is it unguardable every night well not necessarily because some teams can put better Defenders on Beal some teams will be ready to collapse on his roles or

Send help to his pop catch and shoot opportunities there’s all sorts of things once you put it on film once it’s on The Scouting Report that will make it go away but a reminder here right Booker was on the court for a lot of this not the whole time there were

Moments near the end of the third when he was off a couple minutes when beill continued to cook but Booker was a floor spacer for a lot of this stretch and that brings us to the big takeaway of the game because even if this gets scouted a little

Bit maybe it’s never 20 points in a quarter and three assists from Durant for the foreseeable future but it just highlights how many options this team has and my big takeaway from tonight tonight is that this is what a big three win ought to look like and it’s not just on the

Offensive end we’ll get into what that means and what I mean next first Today’s Show brought to you by Jace medical I know we come to sports to talk uh and enjoy something as a distraction from real life but according to the FDA pharmacies are running out of antibiotics like

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Locked on to get $20 off your first order all right let’s keep it rolling what do I mean by the fact that this is a big three win and why does this one indicate that why does this one so sweet let me just put it that way more

Basic it’s a big three- win because these guys combine for 86 points and 14 assists to just seven turnovers all of them shot at least 50% from the field all of them made at least two three-pointers and all of them were at least a plus 15 in the Box Score when

These three guys were on the court in any combination good things tended to happen that is what you have to do to win with a roster built this way right because we’ll get to the rest of the rotation but if you look nurkic had a couple nice post-ups

Against Anthony Davis but nine points two assists aogi you get why he’s out there but not an offensive threat bullbull not an offensive threat in terms of you know he’s not going to put up 30 points and Eric Gordon was ice cold and that was the sun’s rotation

That was the eight guys that played they went up against a pretty fearsome Lakers defense and a Lakers team that you know after yes LeBron ended up sort of being not benched like because he was bad benched because they just kind of hung it up for the night but if this was

Within Reach we know those two can put a game away LeBron and AD and this is a team that’s beaten the Suns three times this is how you have to win with a roster built this way early in the first half I thought that we might see a game where for the

Most part at least two of the stars were on the court at all times that didn’t end up panning out there was a Booker only stretch there was a Beal only stretch I’m not sure if there was a KD only stretch but okay so maybe the rotation is still getting

Figured out and only playing guys makes it hard to do that well maybe it makes it easier I don’t know either way it didn’t happen but it could and it will in the playoffs I would bet you and Booker spoke to this this week that in the postseason especially when these guys

Have it going so much you will see two of them on the court at least at all times that would be my guess but it was not just offense tonight Durant did an incredible job guarding LeBron and again that is something that happens when you build the roster this way when you

Have a big three and limited depth because the suns are starting two of their three non-max non-minimum players right nurkic makes 18 or so million Grayson Allen makes seven or so those were both parts of the DeAndre Aton trade nir little was back healthy today after missing several games with n

Tendonitis didn’t play maybe he does in the future but when you do that when you run your roster that way when you run your rotation that way you kind of have to roll with what’s working and what’s been working this year is Grayson Allen in general he’s been awesome but he’s

Been the best guy to play off of the other the other four starters the other three stars and that makes you a small team and when you play a big team like the Lakers where nobody in the starting lineup is shorter than like 66 or whatever Reeves or reddish

Is then you have to rely on your best guy guys to play legitimate defense guard actual offensive threats and Durant had to do that against LeBron he had to do that against kawhai on Monday and we were caught up being pretty negative about that Clippers game

But I will be going back and watching and I want to plug this is something that is still happening and uh I’m awaiting some bigger changes with the show that will allow me to really dive back in but the locked on suns Insider text alerts have not gone away I’m still

Plugging away there and there will be another video coming this week and that is my promise it will be in locked on suns Insider subscriber video uh feeds and it is a video on Durant’s defense against both kawhai and LeBron and I maybe shouldn’t have been

So negative about it on Monday or I could have found the positive to Hype up there but he did it again tonight and that is also again a symptom of what has to happen when you build the roster this way Durant has to guard LeBron James some

Nights it’s just the realities of the situation you don’t always uh want to have Grayson Allen lunging at Luca donic pullup threes on Christmas while he’s drops 50 right you’d like to maybe have that be Booker or uh anybody else if it’s if it’s not going well

You’d like to have some adjustments and so Kudos s Durant for stepping up and doing that these are the types of things that have to continually happen in order for the Suns to win games there’s no way around it I mean we’re at the bottom of the barrel watching these guys and wondering

Which of these Wings is going to step up the answer seems to be none of them right now we’ll get to that but I don’t blame Frank Vogal for running an eight-man rotation and one of those eight was bub somebody that a lot of fans and and you know

NBA officient AOS thought was a waste of a roster spot and obviously he’s proved them wrong but that’s far from some sort of sure thing you know so I say all this to just reiterate this is how a big three win is supposed to look maybe it doesn’t need to be 86

Points and 14 rebounds every or 14 assists every night doesn’t but this level of playing off of one another efficiently scoring and and playmaking and contributing on the defensive end those are non-negotiables and it’s not about me being a you know pain in the butt and just wanting to

Like you know get a takeoff this is the reality this is what they signed up for this is what James Jones built this is how the Suns win to quote my uncut gems t-shirt This Is How They Win right and it was a great start signature win

Road win against the Lakers who are also a rested team I know it’s just the Lakers and they’ve been in a rut lately but this team was three and0 against them this team has an identity they win a lot of games they were in the Conference finals last year made it

Further in the postseason than Phoenix did this is a nice signature win that they can hang their hat on and they did it because their best three guys stepped up the way that they needed to let’s talk about bu bow and a few box score Oddities to close out the show

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Show let’s get into the young forward breakout watch and man have we cycled through a lot of those in this segment this season we had a stretch where nir little was playing well even started we saw the kab Bates deop experience back in uh Halloween week when he looked like against the Spurs

The answered all the problems the suns were going to have on the wing nope we even talked about Jordan Goodwin quite a bit here chimzi metu was starting multiple games as recently as like last week and all of them are out of the rotation now instead somebody that I didn’t even

Think was a forward although I maybe I should have known better bub is the young forward the only of the kind of newcomers to even be playing right now and Mike vill who does the timeline podcast over at bluewire they do a great job tweeted today it would be difficult

To explain to anyone who’s not a Suns fan or doesn’t watch them every day just how big it is for this team that Bub has just not been a big negative lately and that’s the perfect way to say it right I I don’t I don’t think anybody

Uh in the organization or in this fan base necessarily loves how critical bullbull has become just considering that he is uh at least previously in his career has been a pretty volatile player pretty mistake prone but man if he has not limited those mistakes lately

It’s hard to even say that right now it kind of feels rude it kind of feels disrespectful I’ve mentioned it time and again the guy who played next to Drew Eubanks a few times in in December and just was allowing lobs at the basket and missing his assignment in transition

And fouling all the time and turning it over I don’t know where that guy went the Suns coached it out of him he he buckled down and and realized what it was going to take to get on the court and what this system was asking of him

And man if he has not really been solid and that’s the most surprising thing to say right because and I know I’ve talked about this before last week or maybe even earlier this week I did the three rules to playing bull bow and I believe it was play size around him it was

Be ready to pull the plug uh I can’t even remember the other one but the surprising thing to say is the steadiness if he had just made threes or had some hot scoring nights or even some flashy passes or highlight dunks those are all things we know he can do right

That’s what made him tantalizing that’s what made him a five-star recruit going into Oregon and somebody who prior to draft night of 2018 correct who we thought would be a first-rounder that’s that’s why he’s tantalizing but to call him steady I don’t know if that’s a adjective we would have used

Previously but tonight two offensive rebounds two assists zero turnovers two steals two blocks and just quick simple solid decisionmaking he keeps he keeps the ball moving when it gets to him he shoots when he’s open he had a seal against D’Angelo Russell in the post today where the Suns identified

It and he posted him up deep in the paint and got a bucket out of it you know he only had one foul in 17 minutes and whether he’s kind of you know having to guard somebody more on the perimeter or he is more stationed around the

Basket in a zone or kind of ignoring his man and playing free safety kind of hasn’t mattered and again to to say that about him is the last thing we would have expected and it’s a real Testament to him it’s a real Testament to this coaching staff

And even this locker room you know we know he has relationships with the star players it’s all very very impressive let’s close with the box score odity and again it’s not really a box score stat but we have a few box score stats we can point to

Here the Suns had 48 points in the paint and 28 points off of turnovers tonight 28 points off turnovers 23 fast break 48 points in the paint those are the three that I think you would have to Circle as well as the 13 offensive rebounds so those are easy points right

Those are the one well not all points in the paint are easy but those are the best points to get putbacks layups and dunks transition points that is a signal that this team is as much as it can you know they’re always going to be mid-range heavy but

They’re doing enough of the other stuff to keep things even and for them look sometimes the points in the paint sometimes that’s going to be floaters kind of short mid-rangers but I thought tonight you saw Beal really attack the basket you saw most guys on this team not afraid to challenge Anthony Davis

And especially compared to how terrified they seem to be guarding or trying to score on jiren Jackson Jr on Sunday night I think it was really refreshing to see them challenge ad and be rewarded for it again they won the points in the paint battle they got 23 free throw attempts

Up on down the line but the deeper which is via cleaning the glass stat that I want to hit here which is not really a box score stat necessarily is the sun’s transition efficiency okay they were Bonkers in transition tonight overall cleaning the glass counted them as having a

125.75 points 7 would lead the NBA by a good margin in terms of points per 100 possessions but what transition did for them is added according to cleaning the glass’s calculations 13.6 points to that offensive rating so if you think about it this way without being as effective

In transition as the suns were they would have gone from a 112.1 offensive rating which if you want to compare that to a season long number for the NBA this season 112.1 would put them just above the Washington Wizards at 25th in offense so what transition did for the Suns

Tonight what their aggressive pushing their ability to force the Lakers into turnovers and score on the fast break out of that playing with better Pace overall what that did is allowed them to go from scoring at a pace equivalent to the Wizards to scoring out a pace better than the Indiana

Pacers that’s why it is such a big deal for this team to play decisively play quickly focus on running off of missed shots certainly running off of turnovers when they can force them and sometimes even running off of made baskets it’s really important because it makes that big of a difference which I

Just Illustrated with the data that will wrap us up awesome win breakout night for Beal lots to build on hope it happens enjoy your weekend and going out with a Suns win is always a very nice thing we will be back Sunday night recapping Suns Blazers with Brandon dwas don’t forget

To subscribe to the locked on suns Insider text alerts where I will have a video breaking down KD’s defense against Kawai and LeBron on Friday for all of you that is at the link in the show description or at jooin sub text.com loock ons Sons I’ll catch you guys next week

Bradley Beal put the Phoenix Suns over the top in a win over their rival Los Angeles Lakers.

Brendon Kleen of @justbasketballfans recaps a signature Suns win, including why the two man game between Beal and Kevin Durant worked and why this is what a Big Three win looks like. Plus, steady Bol Bol and more strong Suns transition play.

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