Let me paint a picture for you. It is the second quarter in Downtown Phoenix as the Suns took on the New Orleans Pelicans last night. There was no Deandre Ayton for the Suns and the Pelicans were missing Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram. The Suns are favored by over 10 points and against a 1-6 Pelicans team. Seems like the Suns should have come out of the gates strong, coasted to a victory, and sat their starters in the 4th quarter, right? Wrong!
As the Suns committed their 14th turnover of the first half and fell by as many as 20 to the Pelicans, Suns fans looked around at each other with a collective grimace on their face. The Boo Birds even made an appearance in the first half as the team appeared entirely out of whack on offense and continued to allow a large number of threes to fly on defense.
Then, in the second half, our knight in shining armor appeared. Putting the team on his back making solid plays on offense scoring the basketball and holding his own on defense. Of course, I’m talking about third string center, Frank “The Tank” Kaminsky. All kidding aside Frank truly did have a good game for the suns and was a burst of energy in the second unit that was needed. However, I’m talking about the Point God himself, Chris Paul.
Chris Paul put on a show last night with 14 points, 7 rebounds and 18 assists. Although he was having a hard time adjusting to the blitzing defense being thrown at him by Willie Green and the Pelicans, Chris Paul bounced back. In particular, in the 4th quarter when the Suns needed him most. Paul scored or assisted on the first 11 made shots of the 4th quarter to help the Suns wrestle the lead, expand on it, and eventually win going away with a score of 100-112.
Although the Suns look like they still have a lot of kinks to be ironed out, it was good to see Chris Paul and to a certain extent, Devin Booker, take over the game at the end like true superstars do in the NBA. There is still a lot of season to go, but the Suns have shown some signs of getting back on track in their last two games after an undesirable start to the season.