The Phoenix Suns were gifted a depleted Los Angeles Clippers squad on Wednesday the night after a terrible loss to L.A. and still only managed to pull away late in a 124-108 victory.
L.A. essentially treated this as a rest day after humiliating the Suns in Phoenix on Tuesday. Paul George, James Harden, Kawhi Leonard and Russell Westbrook were all out with injury designations while Norman Powell and Ivica Zubac were available but did not play, either. Terance Mann only logged eight minutes in the first half and then did not appear the rest of the way.
All of Phoenix’s season-long problems prominently rose to the surface on Tuesday, revealing a group that is clearly disconnected and broken internally. That made the way Wednesday’s game turned unsurprising, especially given the Suns’ woes all year against squads down key players.
And to reinforce this, the Clippers (who have one of the worst rosters in the NBA outside its top seven guys) were missing their seven best players. And the Suns were just without Damion Lee.
Then L.A., led by Bones Hyland and Brandon Boston Jr., went on a 20-4 run to close out the first half ahead by one.
From there, Phoenix couldn’t get out of autopilot let alone stabilize. Its effort in the first quarter was nowhere near 35-4 bad like Tuesday but it bizarrely attempted 20 of its 27 shots from 3-point range, sleepwalking through drive-and-kick scenarios or just chucking up pull-up triples at any opportunity. It was like we were watching a practice drill. Ditto for the defense.
It stank of that energy the rest of the game and it took until 6:30 remaining for Phoenix to get a lead. Another three minutes passed for the Suns to produce five more points and “pull away” to a six-point edge. And that was with Phoenix compiling turnovers, trying its best to give the game away.
