Sometimes all it takes is a false step to change everything – something you’ve taken for granted to be suddenly thrown into shock. Suns and Bucks, who faced the NBA Finals in 2021 and are among the most likely contenders to appear in this year’s championship round, are both overwhelmed by unfortunate steps at the moment.
Phoenix came on Tuesday when All Star guard Devin Booker – in the midst of a shooting master class, scoring 31 points in 25 minutes in Game 2 against the Pelicans – tried to chase another Jackson Hayes, only to land awkwardly on his left. leg.
Milwaukee happened the next night when star striker Chris Middleton – who scored or assisted on four consecutive baskets while the Bucks tried to return to the Bulls in Game 2 – hit Chicago stopper Alex Caruso and tried to spin in lane , only to make his legs slip out from under him, making him stretch and bend his legs.
Booker left immediately; Middleton tried a few more possessions before leaving. Neither of them would return, unable to help their teams reverse the course of the nasty loss that tied their best of seven matches in the first round. After allowing an advantage on the home court, no. 1-planted Suns and no. The 3-placed Bucks should not only be back on the road, but do so with one of their best players on the shelf … and may not be back anytime soon.
Suns did not say much about Booker’s injury, but described it as a “slight sprain of the right hamstring,” without scheduling his return. However, Brian Windhorst of ESPN reports that Buk has suffered a Grade 1 strain, which is likely to protect him from Games 3 and 4 in New Orleans. And that’s the least: according to Jeff Stots of In Street Clothes, the average time lost this season for “invisible hamstring stretching” is 12 days, which would put Phoenix’s top scorer on ice in the first week of May – and, as a result, at the beginning of round 2. Of course, provided that the Suns withstand a terribly fierce team of Pelicans, which now seems like a much more difficult task than expected.
Yes, the Pelicans finished the regular season ninth in the West with just 36 wins, needing two wins in the playoffs to advance to the offseason. But their numbers for the entire season have been strained since the disastrous start of 3-16; these days they are not a standard sad sack. New Orleans is 17-15 from the addition of CJ McCollum in the trading deadline and 12-7 when McCollum and Brandon Ingram are in the lineup. Pells outscored their opponents by 5.3 points per 100 possession with both weapons on the perimeter of the floor – a net rating closer to powerful centers like Warriors and Grizzlies than under -500 also runners – and rounded out deeper, more balanced, and more dangerous team.
Booker’s injury was the biggest story in Game 2 and for good reason. It’s worth remembering, though, that Pells had faced Suns before he came out – New Orleans was up by three when Book fell – and that’s when it came time to face Clutch God Chris Paul down on section, they scored 11 of their last 14 possessions, performing with stubborn precision to keep the number. 1 seed in the bay.
Despite how well New Orleans head coach Willie Green is playing his team right now, the Suns still need to have enough to beat the Pelicans. As head coach Monty Williams told reporters on Thursday, the Suns have gained “experience in the awkward” situation this season without one or another vital gear; every member of Phoenix’s top eight, with the exception of Iron Man Michal Bridges, has missed at least 13 games this season. This includes Booker, in whose absence Phoenix made 8-6 in the regular season. (Three of the six Ls came in the last week, when the Suns had already sewn seed № 1.)
The Suns can still count on Paul, who was the NBA leader in assists this season and exploded with 30 points in a 12-on-16 shooting in Game 1 to continue his attack to hum without Booker. Phoenix is ahead of its opponents by nearly 10 points per 100 minutes with CP3 and without Booker this season, with the future Hall of Fame member increasing its use and increasing his score per minute to help mitigate Booker’s loss. Phoenix also has the luxury of touching Cam Johnson to glide to Booker’s starting point. The finalist for the sixth man of the year shone in 16 starts this season, averaging 16.3 points, 4.9 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.1 steals in 32.7 minutes at the start of 49/42/91 shooting. .
Johnson is not close to Booker’s equal in strike creation and playmaking creativity, but the 6-ft-8 210-pounder can bounce while delivering an elite hit with 3 catch points; Suns defeated opponents by 32 points in 40 minutes with Johnson along with starters Paul, Bridges, Deandre Ayton and Jay Crowder. He also gives Williams another long, active perimeter defender in the starting five to reunite with Bridges and Crowder in hopes of destroying the Ingram tandem (averaging 27.5 points, eight rebounds and 6.5 assists at 50 percent). shooting from the floor two games) and McCollum (24-8-7.5, 50 percent of 3 points).
Of greater concern in any extended period without a book is how Phoenix will cope when Paul sits down. Suns is ahead of his opponents by nearly three points per 100 this season, without any of their All NBA guards on the court, but that estimate is due almost entirely to stingy defense; it would be a great time for Cameron Payne, whose shooting fell off a cliff this season, to rediscover the form he found last postseason. If he can, and if Williams can find a way to break the offensive pace of New Orleans, the Suns must still have enough firepower to advance past Pells. Beyond that, however, danger may loom.
I guess Phoenix wouldn’t have taken care of a second-round match with a jazz team that took six of seven since Paul arrived in the valley, even if Utah didn’t look in the death throes of the Mitchell-Robert era. However, the meeting with Dallas can be spicy – especially if Booker’s recovery takes longer than the average for 12 days (knee tendons are known to be intermittent) and especially if Luka Doncic manages to return to about 100 percent after the start of the round. 1 with calf strain. Experience a meeting with one of the most dangerous and now completely unleashed forces in the sport and the Suns Prize will be the final battle of the Western Conference with a team of Golden State, which seems whole and absolutely dominant, or a team of Grizzlies, which took two of three of Phoenix this season and it has the size, athleticism, depth and faith to turn any series into aerial combat.
Suns can handle that glove – The Ringer’s NBA odds machine still makes them face the Warriors like the teams most likely to represent the West in the finals – but they’ll need a full-fledged Booker to do so. . In order to have any hope of getting this later, they will have to hold the fortress for now.
While the Suns have yet to rule out the possibility of Booker’s hamstring healing in time for a return to Round 1, Bucks has no hope of Middleton, who was ruled out for the rest of the series after an MRI revealed a sprained left MCL. The only timeline Milwaukee is currently working on is a plan to re-evaluate Middleton in two weeks, and this update is unlikely to yield immediate results: according to Stots, the average time lost from MCL sprains this season ranges from 17 days to 41 days, depending on the degree of sprain, which in Middleton’s case was not made public.
As far as he has silver in losing to a three-time All-Star, Milwaukee still has the other two members of his Big Three championship winner. The Bucks held up well during the regular season in minutes outside of Middleton, when Janice Adetokunmpo and Jru Holiday were on the court, beating rivals by 7.1 points per 100. Possessing two tent ladders as strong as Janice and Jru to withstand the team’s build – plus Brooke Lopez, who has looked pretty good in recent weeks after missing nearly five months due to a back injury – should allow Mike Budenholzer to get away with extending the minutes to supplement wings like Grayson Allen, Pat Connauton and Jevon Carter to try to bring Middleton’s production closer together.
The problem with this: Middleton produces a lot. He is one of only 10 players this season to give 20-5-5 in real shooting above the league average. He completes more possessions as a pick-and-roll ball than any Buck except Holiday. He developed beautiful chemistry with Antetokounmpo in the game of two, using his size and touch to hunt down weaker defenders in isolation or on the ladder. In addition, he is a good defender in many positions, standing as the only major winger on the Milwaukee list with length, strength and experience to withstand the elite goal scorers on the wing. This seems quite important, given that Bucks is currently facing Demar DeRosan and Zack Lavine, and will have to face some combination of Jason Tatum and Jaylan Brown, Kevin Durant, Jimmy Butler and / or James Harden, for to defend Bucks his Eastern Conference crown and advance to the finals for only the fourth time in the franchise’s history.
It will take a lot from Connautton and Allen – currently shooting a combined 3-for-19 from the field and 2-for-16 from the 3-point range – to create a reasonable facsimile of Middleton and get Chicago to aggressively pay for paint packaging in defense. to try to take driving trails to Antetokounmpo and Holiday. Both Connautton and Allen look good betting on recovery, given that they both shot better than 39 percent of depth in almost eight attempts at 36 …
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