Suns superstar Kevin Durant went left, just like Bruce Brown said he would.
Midway through the fourth quarter of Denver’s Game 1 rout of Phoenix, Brown, a teammate of Durant’s in Brooklyn, was caught on an island against one of the most lethal scorers in the NBA. But Brown took contact, sat on his dribble, and picked his pocket clean. That transition chance was short-circuited when Chris Paul, perhaps out of frustration, shouldered Jamal Murray to the ground.
Less than a minute later, Durant swerved left and Brown ripped him clean, again.
“I knew he was going to do that,” said Brown, which is way more than most defenders can ever profess against Durant.
Instead of giving the ball up after the second swipe, Brown hammered the transition dunk to effectively end the drama on Saturday night. Before the series even tipped, Brown talked about which direction Durant preferred to operate and knew he liked to settle into the mid-range. Against Durant, you take every advantage you can find.
Beginning with Monday’s Game 2, expect more bodies and more contact thrown in Durant’s direction. For the most part, the recipe, which the Clippers didn’t have the personnel to execute in the first-round series against Phoenix, worked.
Despite 29 points, Durant was responsible for seven of the Suns’ 16 turnovers. Rookie Christian Braun tallied a game-high four steals, and Brown snatched three. Collectively, the Nuggets seized 14 steals to disrupt the Suns’ offensive rhythm and flip the court into transition chances.
“That’s not somebody that you stop,” rugged Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon said of Durant, his primary defensive assignment. Durant’s ability to create space and elevate for his shot is just something the Nuggets have to live with as the series progresses, Gordon said.
Defensively, no one deserved more credit in Game 1 than Brown and Gordon. The work those two did to stymie the Suns was just as important, if not more so, than the six 3-pointers Murray rained down or the 19 boards Nikola Jokic grabbed. It was fair to call them the unsung heroes of Game 1, and their shared defensive engagement might be the X-factors of the series.
In addition to his defense against Durant, Gordon poured in 23 points, including three 3-pointers. At times, the Suns looked like they were daring Gordon to launch.
Gordon heeded advice he got from Denver sharpshooter Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
“(If) you’re open, shoot it,” Caldwell-Pope implored his forward, citing all of Gordon’s offseason work on his long-range shooting.
For his tenacious effort, Brown garnered the Defensive Player of the Game chain. He was so impactful he relegated Caldwell-Pope to the bench for the entire fourth quarter. Devin Booker, who was Caldwell-Pope’s assignment, buried 27 but wasn’t close to the flamethrower he was in the first round against the Clippers.
Outside of those two offensive hubs, no other Suns player scored more than 14. It was a defensive formula that exposed Phoenix’s shallow depth and might be the key to winning this second-round series.
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