Timber! Wolves Crush Suns with Stellar Play in Final Minutes

Thoughts from the Valley of the Suns

Adam Maynes  – Site Editor

With 3:54 remaining in the game, Zach LaVine missed a jump shot that Tyson Chandler rebounded for his 11th carom of the game.

At that moment, with the score 103-105, victory seemed tantalizingly close. The Suns had possession of the ball with an opportunity to take the lead for the first time since the early minutes of the first quarter and the chance for the team’s fifth road win this season was in sight.

Then:

PHX – Missed 3pt Shot (Knight)
Minn – Putback layup (Towns) 103-107
PHX – Made 1-2 FTs (Booker) 104-108
Minn – 3-pt shot (LaVine) 104-111
PHX – Made 1-2 FTs (Bledsoe) 105-111
Minn – Jump Shot (Wiggins) 105-113
PHX – Turnover (Bledsoe)
Minn – Layup (Towns) – 105-115
PHX  – Offensive Foul/Turnover (Chandler)
Minn – Turnover (Rubio)
PHX – Missed Layup (Bledsoe)
PHX – Turnover (Chandler)
Minn – Missed 3pt Shot (Rubio)
PHX – Made 3pt Shot (Bledsoe) 108-115

FINAL

In the final four minutes, down two and with the opportunity to tie or take the lead, the Suns missed two free throws, missed two shots, and turned the ball over twice.

Conversely, Minnesota scored on two layups and a three-point shot.

Granted these are two of the worst teams in the NBA (although seriously, with Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins, Zach LaVine, Ricky Rubio, and Gorgui Dieng, how are the Timberwolves only 8-20?) but the Suns showed that they are the worst of the two.

This is now two victories over Phoenix this season by Minnesota. With eight wins now, 25% are against the Phoenix Suns.

As mentioned in the official Valley of the Suns Game Preview, Minnesota is very top heavy in their scoring. Led by Towns who scored 28, Wiggins who scored 26, LaVine who scored 23, and Dieng who scored 10, they each scored almost identical to their season average scoring.

But to Suns fans, shouldn’t that be exactly what is expected of Eric Bledsoe, Devin Booker, T.J. Warren (when

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healthy), and Brandon Knight each game? A consistent scoring grouping from each of those players? Shouldn’t Bledsoe and Booker at least be scoring at or above 20 points each time on the court?

Didn’t Head Coach Earl Watson say after opening night that Brandon Knight should be expected to lead the team in scoring most nights off the bench?

The idea of inconsistency with the Phoenix Suns being so because of youthfulness truly seems to fall on it’s face when compared to the Minnesota Timberwolves’ three young players.

Here, in order are each arguably team’s three best scorers – I’ll leave the numbers to you to form an opinion:

Karl-Anthony Towns – 22.1pts – 1yr // Eric Bledsoe – 19.7pts – 6yrs

Andrew Wiggins – 21.9pts – 2 yrs // Devin Booker – 18.8pts – 1yr

Zach LaVine – 20.7pts – 2yrs // Brandon Knight – 12.6pts – 5yrs

(Obviously the one caveat for Phoenix is that T.J. Warren is one of the best players on the Suns. But missing 13 games due, and now playing two straight nearly ineffectively, for now I will accept Brandon Knight as one of the top-three, and truthfully should have been considering what was given up for him).

Of the Suns big three, tonight Eric Bledsoe did have a very good night offensively scoring 27 points in the losing effort. He was also 3 of 4 from beyond the arc, his third game in his last six that he has hit three three-point shots. Granted once again the Suns’ non-passing offense afforded him only 3 assists, two of which were on cutting alley-oops by Tyson Chandler and Marquese Chriss. It seems that those types of plays should be attempted about 20 times each night in the half-court offense, but do not even appear to occur 1/4 of that.

Brandon Knight scored 21 off the bench, his first 20+ scoring game since scoring 23 on November 30, against Atlanta. Tonight was Knight’s third 20+ scoring game on the season. He had 25 in 52 games last season.

Devin Booker had a decent shooting night from the field shooting 6-15 for 40%, although his 1-5 from the three-point line is becoming all too common (strangely enough, he has shot 1-5 from three now six times this season). Booker has made at least one three in 13 consecutive games.

Tyson Chandler matched his season average in rebounds at 12, but missed a double-double by one point. Alex Len however, in 19 minutes scored only one point and grabbed only five rebounds.

In his second game back from injury, T.J. Warren shot 0-5 from the field for zero points, and had one rebound and assist each.

Jared Dudley went 2-4 from three tonight, scoring 12 points in 21 minutes and now has the league’s fourth best three-point shooting percentage at 45/8%. Seriously – Why isn’t he taking eight three’s a game?! He’s going to make them, and with the rest of the team so inconsistent, why not have the most consistent shooter…SHOOT!

The only CUB to play was Marquese Chriss, who in 16 minutes had six points, four rebounds, two assists, one steal, and two turnovers, while making 1-2 from three-point range.

The Suns next face the league’s second leading scoring team in the Houston Rockets on Wednesday the 21st at home.

Tell us what you thought of tonight’s game, Valley of the Suns fans! Leave your comments below!

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