As Suns play without ‘best backcourt,’ unlikely hero steps up
PHOENIX – Heading into a March 4 game against the New York Knicks without Chris Paul and Devin Booker, Phoenix Suns coach Monty Williams called on Cam Johnson to score more.
“We should have (a) campaign for Cam Johnson to shoot more. Maybe they sell shots at (his) lemonade stand,” Williams told reporters last week, referring to Johnson’s lemonade stand that raised $5,000 for charity earlier in the week. “We want him to shoot. He’s 6-9. He’s one of the best shooters in the league.”
The Suns are without Paul, who’s expected to miss the rest of the regular season with a right thumb avulsion fracture, and Booker, who had missed three games at press time in the NBA’s health and safety protocols. Without the “best backcourt in the league,” the Suns have moved to a league-best 5113 on the season.
Williams said they aren’t trying to replace Paul and Booker because you can’t. “We’re talking about two Hall of Fame players,” Williams said, “Trying to fill Chris and Book’s shoes would be a fatal blow in my opinion.” But, he said he’s looking for everyone “to raise their levels.” Johnson did that in the March 4 115-114 comeback win.
Johnson scored a careerhigh 38 points on 11 of 16 shooting, going 9 of 12 from three in 28 minutes off the bench. He capped off his lights-out shooting with a game-winning buzzer-beater, the Suns’ first gamewinner since Booker in the 2020 NBA bubble.
“I just wanted to win the game for my team, for CP and Book,” Johnson said afterward. “We’re a team that hates losing. We’ve done it 12 times this year … you hate that feeling. I did not want to have that feeling tonight.”
He missed the team’s March 6 game, though with a quadriceps injury.
The Suns have managed to win over the course of the season despite injuries, COVID-19 and the league’s investigation into team owner Robert Sarver’s conduct.
But Paul’s injury marked Phoenix’s biggest challenge so far. Many questioned if the Suns could stay atop the West without Paul, who hadn’t missed a game all season until he fractured his right thumb on Feb. 16. Booker’s sudden departure from the lineup seemed like insult to injury.
“We’ve played without one or the other, but never without both, not to my knowledge,” Williams said. “So this is a different world for us, but I think it’s a chance for us to grow. And I think our guys are up for the challenge.”
The Suns appeared to struggle without Paul, losing two of the first three games after AllStar break, including back-toback losses at home to New Orleans and Utah. But they rebounded nicely to go 2-0 without Paul or Booker.
Williams equated the losses to the Suns lack of defense in the third quarter, where they gave up 42 points to the Pelicans and 38 points to the Jazz.
“More than anything our defense in the third quarter has to be much better than it’s been post All-Star,” Williams said. “We are 38+ every third quarter. That to me is the place we have to improve that would complement not having Chris and Book. We can’t replace those guys but we can play the kind of defense we need to play.”
The Suns were the No. 3 defense before the All-Star break (105.4 points allowed per 100 possessions) but have struggled more since then.
“We have to cut down on the ‘my bads’ so we can have a chance to play on a level field,” Williams said. “We’ve been digging ourselves in a hole.”
Phoenix dug itself into another hole March 4 against the Knicks, who scored 38 points in the third quarter. The Suns trailed by 14 with 11:29 to go in the fourth before going on a 23-9 run to tie the score at 104. New York answered back with a 6-1 run to go up by five with under two minutes remaining. The Suns closed the game on a 10-4 run, ended by Johnson’s buzzer beater to win 115-114.
Mikal Bridges scored 20 points, Jae Crowder added 14 and Cameron Payne, who returned March 2 after missing 15 games with a sprained right wrist, recorded 17 points and a career-high 16 assists.
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“We’re still growing. We feel like we still have improvement – that’s the scary part. We feel like we haven’t peaked and that’s the great part about our team. We’re very confident and we know we have a lot of work to do,” Crowder said.
“We have … two of our leaders out. We just stay chipping away, trying to, like coach says, ‘win the day.’ We’re just trying to win the day every day and I think it’s great for us to continue to build and continue to go through this stretch without those two. We’re just embracing it.”
The Suns lost 132-122 on March 6 at Milwaukee. They still had an eight-game cushion over the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference to continue to figure it out with less than 20 games left in the regular season.