After losing a third straight game to fall to 8-8 this season, a frustrated Chris Paul put it bluntly about the current state of the Phoenix Suns: they need to play better.
“We are not …” Paul began, pausing briefly, “playing well enough now. I’m not going to say that we are not good enough, but that we are not playing well enough now. ‘
The Suns fell 102-97 at home to Paul’s former team, the Oklahoma City Thunder, on Wednesday with the final three minutes that Phoenix went wrong. The Thunder finished 11-2, and the Suns missed their last six shots.
Paul, who led the Thunder to a surprising 5-seed series last season after a brilliant game, scored 32 points in the 35 minutes against OKC. But two clean looks in the last 20 seconds did not fall, the first was a continuous revolution in the middle series that spun from the edge, and the second a potential binder that immediately caught 3.
The Suns have been Devin Booker without an All-Star guard for the past two games due to a sore thigh muscle. Although the team missed its scoring ability, coach Monty Williams refused to acknowledge it, or anything else, as an excuse.
“Until this team is four quarters consistent, we will feel very much like that,” Williams said. “We can try to make everyone feel sorry for us. It’s not going to work. We have to be consistent. It’s up to us.”
Williams, who clearly increased in his availability two minutes after the game, hampered the Suns’ need for consistency.
“We had an incredibly poor finish,” he said. “We have open shots, shots that are missing under the basket. It’s just weak. Poor execution and poor finishing. That’s it.
“At some point, you just have to finish the games and understand what it takes to be a good team is consistency,” Williams said. ‘Period. That’s the point. ‘
Williams let it be known that if he were to ask any question from that time on, he would answer in the same way: consistency.
“Whatever you ask me, I’m going to say ‘consistency,'” Williams said. “That’s it.”
The Suns led by 15 at the end of the first quarter. But with sloppy turnover and stagnant offense, they scored just 10 points in the second quarter, scoring a 21-4 run by OKC to take the lead after halftime.
As Paul tends to do, he quietly moved into the game and procrastinated early, but asserted himself. He scored 13 points in the fourth quarter to give the Suns a late lead, but defensive fallouts and bad offensive possessions caused Phoenix to collapse.
“We play in tracks,” Paul said. “We have to respect who we play against. Every night. Respect the opponent. They are paid just like us.”
For Paul and the Suns, the past three weeks have seen a promising start to the season. The addition of Paul apparently was able to maintain the momentum they built up with their unbeaten bubble trajectory, but an interruption of their season with a break in three games of health and safety protocols and then Booker’s injury came to a halt.
The Suns have lost five of their last six games, with virtually all recent losses close – rugby overtime games against the Denver Nuggets did not get their way, a four-point loss to the Memphis Grizzlies and a five-point loss to OKC.
“I’m just trying to figure out how we can win,” Paul said. “Because the things that are lost grow old.”