The Phoenix Suns recent struggles continued in their 120-105 loss to the Sacramento Kings on Friday night, despite a fairly strong outing from Kevin Durant (28 PTS, 7 REB, 2 AST, 9-14 FGM). The Kings were doing everything they could to slow down Durant, which led to a hilarious interaction between himself and Sacramento's head coach Mike Brown.
While Durant had a very efficient outing from the floor, the Kings were throwing multiple bodies at him on every possession in an effort to slow him down. Their efforts irritated the superstar forward, who playfully chirped Brown and told him to stop sending double and triple teams his way so that he could get to whatever shots he wanted with ease.
“I asked [Kings coach] Mike Brown about that during the game and he tried to give me a compliment. I was like, ‘F*** out of here. Stop all that doubling and tripling.' But that's just the game plan. I think we're still figuring it out, the spacing around it and when to be aggressive. I can't turn the ball away if we want to have a chance.” – Kevin Durant, Bleacher Report
Kevin Durant, Suns have to find a way to consistently string wins together
Brown was obviously not going to relent in his efforts to quiet Durant, and while the legendary scorer was just joking, it's also a bit telling of Phoenix's recent struggles. Yes, they have barely had their third star in Bradley Beal on the floor, but even then, their depth behind Durant and Devin Booker isn't stepping up to help take the pressure off these guys.
The Suns have time to figure things out, but they need to start picking up wins in order to ensure they don't fall too far behind in the race for a top seed in the Western Conference. Part of that falls on Durant's shoulders to adapt to whatever opposing defenses are throwing at him, and he will have a great chance to do just that when Phoenix takes on the Dallas Mavericks on Christmas day.
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