Unless the Suns make a major trade (what in the world could I be referencing here??) Suns fans can continue to expect to see outcomes like tonight – a loss where the stars continue to shine.
The Clippers began the game shooting lights out as Blake Griffin, playing in only his third game after returning from injury, led all scorers with 13 points on 5-5 shooting. Eric Bledsoe followed punch for a punch and finished the quarter with 11 points himself. Overall the Suns shot an ice cold 38.7%, though Marquese Chriss’ 2-10 from the field in the first period was the biggest cause.
The Clippers led 38-31 after one and continued to pull away in the second quarter behind guards Austin Rivers ad Jamal Crawford who combined for 15 points and 4 assists. Leandro Barbosa created a spark for Phoenix off the bench dropping in 9 points, a season-high for him in one quarter.
The third quarter saw the Clippers begin on a 15-4 run widening the gap to 14 points with 6:36 remaining, though the Suns finished on a torrid run of their own pulling to within 2 points, led by Eric Bledsoe’s 14 points in the third quarter alone. Blake Griffin kept the pressure on the Suns whose bigs were unable to slow him, and Griffin finished two points shy of Bledsoe. In a scary play, with 4:52 remaining Marquese Chriss drove to the basket and DeAndre Jordan forcefully grabbed Chriss’ arm in the air pulling him to the ground. After an officials review, Jordan was ejected with a Flagrant-2 and was unable to return. Afterwards Jordan believed that the officials were unfair to him on the call saying that he simply went for the ball and missed.
Down only four heading into the final quarter and with Los Angeles missing another star, the game seemed to be for the taking for the struggling Suns if they could only manage to shut out their 4th quarter demons and close a game out.
This would not be the case as the Suns would tire out and the Clippers managed to hang on, rebuilding their lead back to 12 with a few minutes remaining and pull away, despite all of Eric Bledsoe’s efforts.
The Suns shot poorly from the field, only 39-96 for 40.6%, as well as a mediocre 7-20 from beyond the arc. The Clippers shot only 26.3% from long range draining 5-19, though they torched the Suns with a 52.4% FG% making 44-84 from the field.
Phoenix’s defense has been atrocious in recent weeks. After holding opponents to 95 points or below in four of five games to end of December and beginning of January, the Suns have allowed an average of 114.25 points to their opponents, including four 120+ games in that stretch.
For the second straight game the Suns have also failed to hold a lead of any amount or duration, losing consecutively in wire-to-wire fashion. In fact, the Suns have not held a lead since they sat up 64-63 with 9:47 remaining in the 3rd quarter against Denver on January 28 – a stretch of 117:47.
Eric Bledsoe finished with 41 points, tying his career-high and broke the 40-point barrier for the third time in the last six games. He also continued his fantastic free throw shooting pace draining 13 of 15 and dished out a game-high 8 assists as well.
Devin Booker scored 20+ for the 14th consecutive game, dropping 20 on 7-19 shooting. He dished out 6 assists and both he and Bledsoe grabbed 4 rebounds.
Tyson Chandler has seen his rebounding numbers slip considerably in recent games grabbing 4, his second game in a row with only 4 boards, and third of his last four games with a maximum of 5 rebounds. However, P.J. Tucker picked up the slack as he recorded a season-high 14 rebounds while scoring 10 points for his second double-double on the season.
Blake Griffin led the Clippers in scoring with 29 points tying his season-high set back on November 18. He did so on 71.4% shooting. Griffin grabbed 8 rebounds and dished out a team-tying-high 5 assists as well.
In 22 minutes thorough two and a half quarters, DeAndre Jordan scored 6 points on 3-3 shooting, snagged 12 rebounds, and recorded 4 blocked shots. Raymond Felton’s 18 points fell short of his season high set on December 30, although continued a stretch of 7 of 8 games in which he has reached double figure scoring.
Jamal Crawford and Austin Rivers finished with 14 points each, although they were 0-6 from three.
Thoughts from the Valley of the Suns
If the Suns do not trade for DeMarcus Cousins then it looks like they will probably begin to lose a lot more consistently than they even had in the first two and a half months of the season.
More from Valley of the Suns
Head Coach Earl Watson had been given a lot of credit for keeping the Suns from a losing streak longer than four games to this point in the year. That streak has now been broken as tonight’s loss to the Los Angeles Clippers set the season-high for losses in a row at 5. Unfortunately for Phoenix there does not appear to be any easy wins in the near future – if at all the rest of the season – and a team that has floundered to try to remain relevant on any level is running the very real risk of sliding into obscurity just as they did at this point last season when the team lost a franchise-tying worst 13 games in a row.
Their record of 15-34 is currently only one game better than last season through 49 games.
DeMarcus Cousins is the big discussion topic of interest for Suns fans at the moment, but if that trade does not come to fruition, then others certainly may. Whatever the Suns do, if they make no major splash in the trade market and keep their 1st round pick, then at least losses like these will potentially have a silver lining: there is a legitimate chance that the Suns could land the #1 overall pick, something they have never had in their history.
