When we talk about Phoenix and a championship, the demons of the past immediately wake them up and take us back to the 1990s. The 1992/93 season was one of the best in the history of the league. It heralded the beginning of a new era, the ‘Dream Team’ of basketball. The highlight came with a historic final series between Chicago and Phoenix, between Michael Jordan and Charles Berkeley. “God wants us to win,” the latter said after the Suns won the fifth game and shrank to 3-2 in the series. In the end, “God” did win, with 33 points in the decisive game on the way to 2: 4 and a Bulls championship.
History has haunted Phoenix for decades. She had tremendous teams with Charles Berkeley and Kevin Johnson, with Paul Westphal and Alban Adams, with Steve Nash and Amara Studmeier during the Seven Seconds Attack. She reached three NBA Finals, but never managed to win. Last season, after breaking a decade-old drought and entering the playoffs, it was so close but again it ended in disappointment, except this time there seems to be something different in the Arizona team, which will try to emulate San Antonio and recover from a scorching loss in the final, with a win the following year.
The bubble – the moment when it all started
On August 14, 2020, Damien Lillard with a monstrous 42-point evening led Portland to a crazy 133: 134 victory over Brooklyn and broke the hearts of Phoenix fans. It was the 2019/20 season, or as we know it – the corona season, which was suspended for four months and finally lasted in a special bubble set up in Orlando. The teams gathered at the Disney World complex and resumed the season. It was clear that the situation would balance and change the level differences between the teams a bit, but no one expected the Phoenix to explode.
Monty Williams’ team came to the bubble with the second worst balance of the teams, but recorded an incredible run of eight wins in eight games and in the final round needed Brooklyn’s win over Portland to sneak into the playoffs. But then as mentioned Lillard came and broke her heart. In fact, it was the moment that marked the resurrection of the phoenix. “I was happy that our players got a chance to experience that kind of success. But I was grateful we missed the playoffs in half a game, I was hoping our players would understand that it means every game counts,” the coach said Monty Williams. That evening when she said goodbye to the bubble, Phoenix knew that after a decade of parking, she was conscious again.
The following season (2020/2021) we could already see a well-oiled machine starting to explode in the western skies. Chris Paul, 35, was traded and came in with a two-year contract for $ 86 million. Diandra Eyton ruled in color, Mikael Bridges contributed a fantastic defensive game, Jay Crowder came in free and added toughness and Cam Johnson, who was selected 11th in the 2019 draft, proved to be a gifted sniper. But most of all, the success was behind Devin Booker. The face of the club, selected by him in 13th place in the 2015 draft, and after years of disappointments has finally become the star of the most successful team in the world. At least until the finals.
“Start respecting Devin Booker”
“Now I’m ready,” were Boker’s words just before the bubble opened. The truth? He was definitely ready. An average of 30.5 points, 6 assists and 4.9 rebounds was his share of the Suns’ crazy run in Orlando and marked the moment of his breakthrough, not only in the individual sense but also in the team aspect. Numbers he had contributed long before, but he had to leave the losses behind. He did it in a bubble. “I always say the hardest thing in the NBA is dealing with losses and staying a leader,” he said at the time just before entering Fortress at Disney World.
Boker remained a leader and also managed to leave behind the losses. almost. The 2020/21 season opened the Suns with a storm and galloped to the top of the West alongside Utah Jazz. They looked like senior contenders for the championship probably when they stood firm in the face of every obstacle they encountered in the playoffs. Playoff we said? After missing out on the Bubbles Phoenix returned to the playoffs for the first time in a decade, the second longest drought in league history when only Sacramento overtook it with 14 years without a run in the playoffs. The Suns qualified for the NBA Finals and already led 0-2 in the series against Milwaukee, but again everything collapsed. The sun was setting again in Arizona.
Phoenix left the depression behind. This past summer she maintained her staff base and especially the trio – Paul, Boker and Eyton. The NBA is a league of stars and the Suns have one, though it’s probably a bit underrated. On March 25, after a huge 130: 140 over Denver and Nikola Jokic, Phoenix secured first place at the end of the regular season and inevitably the home advantage throughout the playoffs. Above them all was again, Devin Booker, who scored 49 points exactly five years after setting a monstrous career record of 70 points. “The fact that he is not in the discussion about the MVP is completely stupid,” Williams said after the game.
Morning leads the Suns with over 26 points per game, and the play against Denver came a day after becoming the fourth youngest player in history with 11,000 points (after LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Kobe Bryant). Currently, the 25-year-old guard, who is already ranked sixth on Phoenix’s list of scenes, is not in contention for the MVP title with the favorites being Yukic, Joel Ambide, Yannis Antokompo and Luka Doncic. “Start respecting Devin Booker,” he tweeted Ja MorantOne of the league stars himself, after the performance against the Nuggets.
The Phoenix: The Resurrection of Williams from the Family Tragedy
“Life is not fair, don’t expect them to be like that,” Monty Williams said in an interview shortly after being fired from New Orleans in 2015, after being relegated in the first round of the sweep playoffs against Golden State. The coach’s life has been full of obstacles since he was a young boy at Notre Dame College. He is considered a basketball star and led his high school basketball team to the championship with averages of 30 points per game and 16 rebounds. But then a rare problem was discovered in his heart and the doctors forbade him to continue playing.
After two years, he returned to the floor and was later selected in the 1994 draft by the New York Knicks, but his career developed in a very mediocre way. He retired at age 31 due to knee problems with a meager average of 6.3 points per game and began serving as an assistant coach until in 2010, at age 38, he was first appointed head coach of the New Orleans Hornets. He served in the position for five years and qualified twice for the playoffs but in both cases was eliminated already in the first round with a total balance of 8: 2.
On February 9, 2016, everything dwarfed. The heart problems, the professional disappointment as a player, the failure in New Orleans, it all seemed meaningless. In the evening Ingrid, Williams’ wife, drove three of their five children in the family jeep back home after the eldest daughter’s basketball game. On the opposite lane was Susanna Donaldson, a 52-year-old woman with a dog on her lap and a high amount of drugs in her blood. She galloped at excessive speed, lost control and collided head-on with a Williams family vehicle. The children Faith, Janna and Mika were not injured, but Ingrid was seriously injured. The next day, she passed away at the age of 44.
The world of Monty Williams, an assistant coach at Oklahoma in those days, was destroyed in an instant. Ingrid accompanied him from a young age and was the reason he persevered during university when he was informed of heart disease. At the funeral he was the one who instilled hope in everyone with an unforgettable obituary: “Everything will work out. As hard as it is for me, my family and you, it will work out. I know this because I have seen things in my life. In 1990 at the University of Notre Dame, a doctor looked me in the eye and said ‘If Keep playing basketball, you’ll die. At first I hid the severity of the disease from Ingrid, but when I told her, she told me that Jesus could heal my heart. give up”.
In the 2018/19 season, after more than two years in which he recovered from the tragedy and even married a second wife, Williams returned to the floor as an assistant coach in Philadelphia. People around him testified that he was a different person, more positive and one that was nice to be around. “His attitude is different from that of a regular NBA coach,” he said Diandra Eyton. “He’s like a friend or dad. He teaches you a lot of things unrelated to basketball and he creates the connection and chemistry that allows you to approach him to consult on any subject. This chemistry is also reflected on the court because you want to play as hard as possible for him and the team.”
Like the phoenix, Williams came back to life from the lowest place he could be. At the end of the season in Philadelphia he returned to the lines as head coach this time in Phoenix. He reached a failed franchise that ended the 2018/19 season with an awkward 63:19 balance. Already in the first season the team kissed the first playoff after almost a decade, with that wonderful 0: 8 run in a bubble, which finally ended in disappointment. But the change was felt. That season the Suns finished with a sensible 39:34 balance and a season later had already become an integral part of the top of the West and ran over everything that moved, until Milwaukee arrived.
Chris Paul’s Swan Song
The loss in last season’s final was very painful for Phoenix, but it only gave perspective to the strengths of a team that left a taste of more. But most of all for one man this year’s playoffs are probably critical to his career. Although he has already established himself as one of the greatest coordinators in the history of the game, is included in the league’s 75 greatest and this year even recorded his 12th All-Star appearance, Chris Paul, probably with the last swan song, knows a career without a championship will be incomplete for him.
The relationship between Monty Williams and Chris Paul is special. The coach was one of the main reasons for the coordinator’s decision to move to Phoenix and the two are well acquainted with the joint period in New Orleans for four seasons. After the tragedy in 2016 Paul was one of the first to call for comfort. “In the darkest moment of my life, Chris was there,” Williams said after advancing to the finals last year. “Now that he’s here at one of the highlights of my career, it’s really quite cool. He’s so significant for my life and for my career. I’ll always be grateful for that.”
Chris Paul is the engine behind the Monty Williams team. When it comes to personal statistics he has already proven his place on the podium of coordinators of all time. This season Paul has already recorded two tremendous milestones, when in early November he rose to third place in the league in assists (10,977 as of the end of the regular season) and left behind Steve Nash, a Phoenix legend of his own. In early April “The Point God” he also climbed to fourth place in steals (2,453 at the end of the regular season) and overtook Gary Peyton. The second statistic became a household name with Paul, who was the king of steals six times in his career and was included nine times in the defensive five. Also on the offensive side his contribution is critical with an average of 14.7 points and 10.8 assists in 65 games in 2021/22.
“Perfect”: The machine built in Arizona
Monty Williams has created a machine that crushes everything called in its path. For the third time in its history it ensured the best balance in the league in the regular season and set a historic club record of 64 wins (the previous one stood at 62). In addition she holds an amazing balance of 0:47 in games in which she has led after three quarters. It’s now clear to everyone that Phoenix is the best team in the NBA and an ESPN reporter even tweeted that “this is the Suns’ best team of all time.” It holds the percentage of success in the best away games in history as well Mike MaloneDenver coach, admitted: “To beat them you have to play almost perfect basketball.”
The secret of Phoenix lies in the fact that unlike most teams, the staff is very balanced and the value of all is essential. “These guys love each other and just enjoy playing together. It’s something you don’t see in sports anymore,” he said recently. Al MakoiThe group’s veteran radio broadcaster, who began his career in 1972 and at the age of 88 still broadcasts the Suns.
Last season Jordan was no longer around to sabotage the Phoenix Championship as in that 93rd series. She led 0-2 in the Finals Series, only to lose four consecutive games later and lose the title again, this time to Milwaukee and Antakumopu. This year again it is the favorite team for the championship, with a record of victories in the regular season, with a star who is at his peak and a legend who must sign its story with a win, the Suns do not want to break their heart once again. The playoffs in the NBA will begin this time with all the pressure on them and it’s just the time to prove it.