Suns burn Hawks
Phoenix gets contributions from Saric and crowder to defeat Atlanta
Suns 117 Hawks 110 PHX: 32-14 ATL: 23-24
PHOENIX – Devin Booker scored 21 points, Dario Saric added 20 and the Phoenix Suns held on in the final minutes to beat the Atlanta Hawks 117-110 on Tuesday night.
The Suns have won six of their past seven games, while the Hawks have dropped four of five. Phoenix’s Jae Crowder added 19 points and made 5 of 8 of his 3-point attempts, including a huge one with 23 seconds left that sealed the win.
The late-game heroics were needed after the Suns let an early 16-point lead slowly slip away.
“Everybody wants a pretty win,” Suns coach Monty Williams said. “I just want to win. You have to take them any way you get them.”
Atlanta trailed for nearly the entire game until Trae Young made two free
other league executives point out that data accumulated over the past decade or so show more injuries occur in a preseason game than any other. Also as part of the labor agreement, the players now will receive 48.5% of shareable revenues with a 17th game, up from 47% last season.
This year, the AFC East will host the NFC East in Week 17, with Washington at Buffalo, the New York Giants at Miami, Dallas at New England and Philadelphia at the New York Jets.
The NFC West teams will visit AFC North clubs, with
Seattle at Pittsburgh, the Los Angeles Rams at Baltimore, Arizona at Cleveland and San Francisco at Cincinnati.
NFC South members go to the AFC South, so New Orleans will be at Tennessee, Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay at Indianapolis, Carolina at Houston and Atlanta at Jacksonville.
For NFC North clubs, Green Bay goes to Kansas City for a juicy matchup of Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes, while Chicago is at Las Vegas, Minnesota at the Los Angeles Chargers and Detroit at Denver.
The full schedule will be released in May, but the Buccaneers will kick off the season on Thursday,
Sept. 9. The regular season will end Jan. 9.
As for fans in the stands – 119 games, including the postseason, had some in-person attendance during the coronavirus-impacted 2020 season, with approximately 1.2 millions fans in total – Goodell sounded optimistic.
“We’re discussing plans to welcome back all fans across the country at all stadiums,” he said. “All of us want to see every one of our fans back. Football is not the same without fans, and we expect to have full stadiums in the upcoming season.”
The Super Bowl will be played in Los Angeles at SoFi Stadium.
“We have been in constant communication with our partners about this change, and we’re excited for the unprecedented opportunity of presenting the American audience with the two biggest events in media simultaneously,” NBC said in a statement. “We will promote the Super Bowl during the first week of the Winter Olympics, and we’ll promote the second week of the Winter Olympics during the Super Bowl. It’s a win for us, our partners, advertisers, and certainly viewers.”
Last season, the league added two playoff teams to increase the number of postseason games. Now, it is adding 16 more matches,
or “inventory,” as league executives often refer to it. Also:
– The 32 franchises were told that organized team activities (OTAs) will begin April 19, with COVID-19 protocols in place. The early launch of OTAs afforded to teams with new head coaches has been waived this year.
Specifics on other offseason programs, including minicamps and the opening of training camps, are being discussed by the league and union.
– Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s medical director who oversaw the COVID-19 response and protocols that helped the league play every game last season, updated
the teams. Goodell said Sills and his staff are dealing “primarily in the area of education and trying to make sure not to just educate players but all our personnel on the importance of vaccinations – the fact it does help protect you from getting COVID and spreading COVID.”
“We will be encouraging all personnel to get vaccinated and working with the players association on all these issues . ... We are also using our platforms publicly to talk about the importance of getting vaccinations.”
The NFL doesn’t plan to mandate vaccinations for players, coaches or staff members.