The Suns came into the game after losing 4 of their last 5. The Warriors were coming off 2 nice wins against the Timberwolves. This game was their first matchup of the season. Their first matchup was supposed to be on January 15th but was postponed due to Covid-19. This was the first time Kelly Oubre Jr. faced his former team in the Suns. The Suns were missing a key player in this game in Devin Booker. Chris Paul and Stephen Curry have had many matchups before and in most of the Curry has dominated. If Chris Paul and the Suns wanted to end that trend they likely needed to find huge games out of Deandre Ayton and Chris Paul and have their top 10 defense prove that the top 10 is where they should be. If the Warriors wanted to win this game they needed to have nice games from Wiggins and Curry. They’d also need to make sure that Chris Paul didn’t go off. A battle between 2 hall of fame point guards looked like it would be a very fun game.To the game!
The Warriors ended up winning the tip but the Suns scored first with a Chris Paul floater. The Warriors got their first points at 10:18 with an Andrew Wiggins alley oop dunk. At 9:10 Steve Kerr called a timeout after the Suns took an early 11-5 lead. At 6:55 Andrew Wiggins made a 3 to tie the game. At 1:52 Frank Kaminsky got a 3 point play to give the Suns a 12 point lead. To end the quarter Stephen Curry made a pullup jumper making the score 36-29. The Warriors didn’t rebound well in the first quarter with only 9 compared to the Suns 16. The Warriors also missed a bunch of shots with 38.5% from 2. They did shoot well from behind the ark with 54.5% from there. The Suns shot well from everywhere with 56% from the field and 40% from deep. The leading scorers for each team were Curry with 13 for the Warriors and Paul with 9 for the Suns. Deandre Ayton played great defense on Wiseman and Looney in the first quarter. The Warriors were lucky that the difference was 7 points and not 15 after the first quarter.
To start the 2nd quarter Chris Paul made a layup followed by a Wannamaker layup. At 9:15 Eric Paschall made a jumper to give the Warriors the lead. At 7:50 Chris Paul made a pullup jumper to give the Suns the lead. At 4:37 Andrew Wiggins made a 3 to tie the game at 46. At 2:14 Deandre Ayton made a turnaround jumper to retake the lead. At the end of the half the Warriors closed the gap a bit and the score was 52-47. Both teams played great defense in the second quarter lowering shooting splits to 37.5% from the field and 36.8% from 3 for the Warriors. The Suns on the other hand shot 44.7% from 2 and 26.7% from 3. The second unit played well for the Warriors in the second quarter taking a lead multiple times. To the third!
To start the 3rd Jae Crowder made a 3 to give the Suns an 8 point lead. Stephen Curry then followed that up with a 3 of his own. At 6:46 Jae Crowder made a 3 to give the Suns a 10 point lead. At 4:57 Draymond Green got a technical foul. In the middle of the 3rd quarter the Suns went on a 14-4 run. At the end of the third quarter the score was 85-71 after the Suns won the third quarter by 9 points. The Warriors weren’t able to make many shots in the third quarter with 38.9% from 2 and 32.1% from 3. The Suns on the other hand were able to make a few shots with 47.6% from 2 and 34.8% from 3. At the end of the third quarter Stephen Curry had 27 points to lead the Warriors and Jae Crowder had 16 to lead the Suns. If the Warriors were going to win this game they needed to have an amazing 4th quarter.
To start off the 4th quarter Eric Paschall made a turnaround hook shot. After 2 Suns’ 3’s the Warriors were forced to call a timeout after getting down 16. At 6:01 Mikal Bridges made a layup to give the Suns a 21 point lead. The Warriors starters ended up coming in and not being able to score in crunch time. For the final points of the game Jordan Poole made a layup with 34 seconds to go. The final score was 114-93.
Leo’s Courtside Commentary: The Warriors as a team had a pretty terrible game with only Curry, Wiggins, and Paschall scoring 10 points or more. The Warriors shot selection wasn’t the best either. The Suns biggest lead was 18 points and the Warriors biggest lead was 1 point. Though the Suns won I feel like Stephen Curry had a better game than Chris Paul but Chris Paul still got the win. Kelly Oubre Jr. had a pretty bad game against his former team with only 4 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, and a +/- of -27. The shooting splits were 38.4% from 2 and 28.9% from 3 for the Warriors. The Suns shot much better than the Warriors with 46.6% from 2 and 34.4% from 3. The Suns had 13 more assists than the Warriors, 9 more rebounds, and 5 less fouls. The Suns really busted it open in the 4th to seal the game. Overall, this was a very poor game for the Warriors and a great game from the Suns who had 7 players with double digit scoring.
Out of LF 
The Suns game was really disappointing. Thank you for the great recap and the enlightening commentary.
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