When all else fails, the Phoenix Suns have Kevin Durant, and that’s still going to be enough to win a lot of games this season. Sunday’s 140-137 victory over the Utah Jazz in double overtime, a mess of a basketball game, was a testament to that.
Phoenix’s half-court offense flatlined at a certain point, with horrific flow via terrible turnovers and efforts on loose balls coming up short not helping matters. But the Jazz were automatically doubling Durant whenever he would begin to approach attacking the defense, so the Suns were able to run an entire offense off of that. It was rough at first before Phoenix found the proper spacing with just a few minutes left in the fourth quarter, and it was solid again in overtime to put Phoenix in a position to win the game
And when the rotations off that double didn’t yield a positive look, Durant was there as the bailout man with a contested 3 going down at under 40 seconds left in overtime to put the Suns in the driver’s seat, up five.
After the Jazz scored and Eric Gordon missed a 3 with 10 seconds left, fouling up three shenanigans occurred. Utah’s Lauri Markkanen made both, Gordon only knocked down one and a fitting putback by Jazz guard Collin Sexton at the buzzer for second-chance points 26 and 27 brought double overtime.
Durant then scored eight points on the Suns’ firs three possessions 91 seconds in, having the Suns once more up five. The Jazz of course eventually tied it yet again, this time at 58.2 seconds left, before a double team on Devin Booker at the free throw-line left Grayson Allen wide open one pass away for an easy 3 to retake the lead.
The Jazz got a quick two, opting not to foul down one with a three-second gap between the shot and game clock. A tremendous (yet dangerous) pass out of a double by Booker via Durant found Durant for an open 3 he failed to convert on before it was ironically the Suns and Keita Bates-Diop securing the clutch offensive rebound with one second left. Booker made both free throws, and at 0.9 on the game clock, Markkanen got it in the corner and was improbably fouled by Durant, intensifying speculation we were inside some type of simulation for an NBA fixture that would never end.
Phoenix wisely challenged, and because Durant got contact with the ball first, it was overturned, mercifully ending the contest.
Durant finished with 39 points, eight rebounds, 10 assists, two steals, two blocks and seven turnovers. This was enough to overcome Utah’s 17 offensive rebounds resulting in 27 second-chance points. Toss in the Suns being unable to make up ground in the turnover department with 17 and the Jazz were +13 in shot attempts.
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