The Suns weren’t expected to blow out the Golden State Warriors in Phoenix Tuesday night, but they ended up routing the defending NBA champion by 29 points.
The turning point was the dustup between Klay Thompson and Devin Booker halfway into the third quarter, which led to the 10-year veteran Thompson’s first career ejection.
That proved a turning point for both teams, as the Suns (3-1), overwhelmed the Warriors (2-2), 134-105 at Footprint Center.
“It’s an emotional game where we gotta remember as the defending champs, there’s a different glow when you walk in and teams are trying to come at you, and especially on the road with their crowd into it,” Steph Curry (21 points, 8 assists), said after the game.
“Their emotions are running high, they fed off of it, so it’s a good learning lesson. We gotta defend ourselves. We gotta have that competitive nature but stay composed as much as possible. But they outplayed us (Tuesday) and they had a bit of an edge after that moment to capitalize off it. We had no answer for it.”
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The Suns won the first quarter, 37-28, and the Warriors never regained the lead after the Suns went ahead 42-39 at 9:18 in the second.
After the Suns’ 72-66 halftime lead, there was a four-minute stretch through the third quarter’s midpoint where seven technical fouls were dished out. Among those assessed were the Suns’ top trio Booker, Deandre Ayton, and Chris Paul, as well as two of the Warriors’ All-Stars, Thompson and Draymond Green, and their coach Steve Kerr.
Green (14 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals) had yelled several times at the officials after he made and missed shots in the first half. He received the first in that string of technicals after he made a shot to trim the Suns to 74-70 at 10:18, and complained that a foul should’ve been called.
Kerr was also T’d up for complaining about the no-calls. The Warriors had just seven free-throw attempts and 11 foul calls on them in the first half compared to the Suns’ 16 and six in those categories.
Golden State finished 13-for-17 on free throws, and the Suns doubled that amount of attempts (28-for-34).
“We were getting frustrated obviously with a few calls or no-calls,” Kerr said about when he and Draymond got a technical foul. “Sometimes you need to take a tech, sometimes you don’t. But I don’t think that’s when the game was decided. With five minutes left, I looked at the box score and the two teams basically had the same (amount of) field goals, same 3-pointers, and they had 15 more free throws than us and that was a difference in the game.
The Suns went on a 9-0 run after Kerr’s and Green’s techs.
Paul (16 points, game-high 9 assists) and Ayton (16 points, game-high 14 rebounds, 4 assists) were handed one technical each at 7:53 and 29 seconds later.
Ayton felt the aggression between both teams, but the momentum went in his team’s favor after that when many players left their benches.
“We definitely absorb all of that. We fought through it and we threw some of our hits back as well,” Ayton said. “They definitely took some hits from us, too.”
Thompson and Booker were called for a double technical after verbal sparring while guarding each other up to that moment.
Thompson walked up and shoved Booker with his shoulder, which gave Thompson his first technical. Then when Mikal Bridges came to defend Booker in the fracas, Thompson shoved Bridges’ arm away, and Thompson was thrown out of the game.
The Suns cruised from there to gain a 105-86 lead to end the third and never looked back.
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After the game, Kerr cited that Booker and Thompson started their rivalry several years ago.
“He and Book have gotten into it a little bit over the years,” Kerr said. “They’re competitors, both great players. I remember four or five years ago when Book was just coming up and Klay was in his prime, they went to it one night in Oracle (Arena), same type of thing happened. There were no ejections, but they’re both competitive guarding each other and this is the NBA. It’s the highest competition in the world, so stuff like that happens.”
Kerr added that the sharpshooter Thompson was frustrated from his shot being off and his minute restriction through the first four games. Thompson hit just 1-for-8 including 0-for-5 from the perimeter, finishing with just two points in 19 minutes played.
Thompson averaged 32.5 minutes per game through his first nine seasons. Following his comeback last season from his torn ACL and Achilles’ injuries that sidelined him from June 2019 through January, he’s down to 23.3 minutes through the Warrior’s first four games.
Booker got the best of Thompson, leading all scorers with 34 points, his third straight game over 30.
Booker said in the postgame that Thompson repeatedly bragged during their verbal joust that he’s got four championship rings, and Thompson barked at the Suns bench on his way to the locker room.
The Suns outrebounded the Warriors 48-40, and shot better from the 3 than 41.4% to the Warriors’ 28.6%. Suns backup big Jock Landale (17 points, 7 rebounds) and the rest of their bench contributed well to the Suns’ 29 plus-minus as a team, just one player in the negative, and their starters’ mean in that stat was 20.4.
All 10 Warriors who played were negative and totaled -29.
Kerr said that the Warriors’ biggest deficiency exposed in the game was their transition defense, and cited their 28 fouls to the Suns’ 19 was due to being late on rotations, giving up over 70 points in halves in each of their past three games.
“I didn’t like when we got down, I thought we just started jacking shots. We stopped moving the ball in the second half,” Kerr said. “I think Phoenix is really buttoned up and Monty’s got them playing hard and smart and they know exactly who they are, and it’s gonna take some time for us.”
“We got a lot of new people, young guys, and we’re gonna have to build our identity. We’re nowhere close to where we need to be right now. We’re a very poor defensive team, and that doesn’t t win in this league.”
Do you have tips for us? Reach the reporter at dana.scott@azcentral.com or at 480-486-4721. Follow his Twitter @iam_DanaScott.
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