Paul’s 3-point shooting streak takes off at right time
Chris Paul has begun to find his stroke again as a catch-and-shoot threat from the perimeter during the last three games of the Suns’ current four-game win streak.
The team immediately turned to its next-man-up mentality after Kevin Durant injured his left ankle during his pregame warmup routine Wednesday. He was scratched from the lineup, but Phoenix went on to defeat Oklahoma City 132-101. The Suns’ were propelled by a stellar 52.1% shooting, 46.5% from deep.
Their original Big 3 of Devin Booker, Deandre Ayton and Chris Paul shot efficiently in the blowout, making up for the loss of Durant.
Booker went off for 44 points (17of-23 from the field), Ayton had 12 points (5-of-9 FG) with eight rebounds, and Paul had his best shooting performance of this season by hitting 6-of-8 for 18 points and had game-highs nine assists and four steals.
“Yeah, you know in this league, you’ve been around for a while you learn some people like to play, some people love to play. K (Kevin Durant) is one of the people that just loves to hoop,” Paul said afer the game.
“Obviously knowing this was going to be his first home game, we was all excited. Once we found he wasn’t playing, nothing against him, but we wasn’t tripping. We got a lot of guys in our locker room that are more than capable. We knew to just hoop.”
Paul finished 4-of-5 from deep, while Booker and backup wing Terrence Ross (season-high 24 points) both sank 6of-10.
“I thought DA (Deandre Ayton), his tone in the third quarter was huge. He understood that the level had dropped a bit in the second quarter and he came out, he and Chris both had a different edge about them,” said head caoch Monty Williams.
Paul has averaged 13.5 points, shot 43% overall, and his team-high nine assists per game this season. He’s had some flashes of his old self as a scoring threat, but not as much this season, and he’s missed 21 of their 66 games from injuries. He’s known for creating his shot off penetration and getting to his midrange sweet spot near the elbows.
His role slightly changed at the start of this season to be more off the ball for different looks in the Suns’ offensive schemes as they put their former starters Mikal Bridges and Cameron Johnson in that initiator role to help manage Paul’s minutes and conditioning. But Bridges and Johnson were dealt to Brooklyn in the trade that brought Durant to Phoenix last month.
As a true shooter, Paul’s been inconDurant’s
sistent from the 3 for most of this season. He’s averaging 38% on just 1.6 makes on 4.3 attempts per game, and his career numbers as a 3-point shooter are 36.9% on just 1.3 makes out of 3.6 per contest.
In February, Paul had a season-low 21.9% on a 0.7-of-3.2 average. But during January, he was lights out letting it fly and hitting 48.7% of 4.9 attempts per contest. That number was up from 43.9% on 5.1 attempts in December. In the first two months of the season, he shot 23.8% in October and 33.3% the next month at around just three attempts per game.
However, Paul’s 3-point shooting has been trending upward this month at nearly 41% shooting of his 5.5 attempts per game average. After going 0-for-4 in debut against Charlotte, Paul went 3-of-7 against Chicago last Friday, hit two huge 3s in the fourth quarter out of his six attempts at Dallas, then was on fire against Oklahoma City.
Paul finding a rhythm from the 3 will help their scoring attack both before and after Durant returns to their lineup (Durant’s shot 53.8% from deep in his three games with Phoenix since March 1) for the final 16 games regular season and into the postseason.
“He is gonna have to. We encourage him to do that every day,” Devin Booker said about Paul after Wednesday’s game. “He knows we are drilling it in practice. If you look at the Mavs game, that was part of their game plan at one part of the game. Chris can shoot that thing. The problem is we are always telling him to shoot it more. Even before we were teammates, I am like, ‘Why doesn’t he shoot more threes?’”
There were five other games this season before Wednesday that Paul hit at least four 3s, and most of his streaky shooting performances from that area resulted in Suns victories.
Phoenix has a 9-6 record this season when he shoots 40% or better on at least three attempts, and is 10-5 when he makes at least three of them at a 50% clip.
So that math explains that the more the Point God gets hot from the 3, the higher chances the Suns will remain in the win column.
“Just keep getting more and more used to it,” Paul said about being a catch-and-shoot threat. “I used to mess with J-Kidd (Jason Kidd) all the time about how that’s how he spent his last two to three years. You could look at a box score and J-Kidd would have 14 shot attempts, all threes (laughs).
“Who knows if that is going to be the situation. I think whatever the game calls for I’ll be ready for. When you play with this much talent everyone has to adjust here and there. And I think we got a group of guys who are willing and able. We will figure it out.”