Thursday night in downtown Phoenix was supposed to be a celebration of the Phoenix Suns being whole once again.
Bradley Beal returned after missing two games, and a beatable opponent was walking through the doors in the Indiana Pacers.
For two and a half quarters, that was true. The Suns went into the half down just 1, with both Devin Booker and Kevin Durant off to strong starts.
Then midway through the third quarter, disaster struck again. Booker went out with groin tightness, an injury that has plagued him for years. Back to the drawing board.
Perhaps because of the distraction of Booker’s absence, the Suns collapsed. They went down as much as 19 on their way to giving up 40 points in the third quarter. Indiana turned being a road underdog into a get-right game, bombing from three and gashing the Suns in transition.
There was Beal, throwing his fist in digust as the Suns missed yet another defensive rotation on a three-pointer in the second half. There was Durant, eyes to the sky in frustration as he walked to the bench during a timeout. Everybody cares, everybody wants it. What they are missing is someone to rip it out of them.
And it certainly doesn’t help that they cannot even field a full roster in enough games to develop confidence and cohesion as a team. Every win has an injury caveat, every loss has an easy excuse. Nothing makes sense.
But while so much is still unclear about the Suns after another nightmare fall, what is clear is that this team is massively injury-prone and already staring into a scary void of another lost season.
On today’s episode, we react to another disappointing night at Footprint Center.
