Monty Williams Torches Suns' Lack of Energy, Scoring
The Phoenix Suns saw their four-game winning streak come to an end on Thursday night with a 99-95 loss to the Dallas Mavericks.
Though the Suns were able to keep things close, Dallas paced Phoenix for most of the second half even without the talents of Luka Doncic, who sprained his ankle in the opening minutes of the game and didn't return.
After the loss, a peeved Monty Williams took the podium and didn't hold back (quotes via Suns MR)
(On what happened with tonight’s performance...)
“Just situational awareness, like I told the guys, ‘every possession has to be important to us.’ I don’t think it was important tonight. Across the board, I thought our bench came in with very little awareness of the game plan. I made a few subs and the energy went, focus went and then in that situation, it was not as important to us as to them, to get the ball.”
(On trying to switch up the defensive coverage against Spencer Dinwiddie...)
“I think it broke his rhythm a little bit. I mean, some of the shots he made were just unreal shots. The zone, the hits, like at some point, you got to sit down and put your chest on somebody and guard the ball. We can’t scheme the whole game and I thought we were in schemes all night to try and stop him when he had it going, but they scored 99 points. That’s below NBA averages and so, our lack of ability to convert, when we did get stops, wasn’t at the best level tonight.”
(On Deandre Ayton’s performance tonight...)
“Look, we didn’t win the game. It was a tough night for everybody across the board, yeah he could’ve finished better around the basket, but by and large, we did not play to the best of our ability tonight, especially when I started to make subs. That was a dip in our focus and energy tonight and that can’t happen.”
(On playing 13 players tonight...)
“Trying to find a group out there that, one, stay in front of the ball and two, be able to convert against their switching tonight. This is probably the worst we looked against switching in a while and we’ve been pretty decent at that. Tonight, we couldn’t. Chris (Paul) saved the day, Mikal (Bridges) saved the day. We can’t play like that all the time.”
