The Suns’ Kevin Durant is putting the dreaded fan in his place
On Tuesday evening, Phoenix Suns dropped to 19-20 on the season with a a road loss to the Atlanta Hawks. The game bizarrely marked the start of the Suns’ second trip to the Eastern Conference in as many weeks and was filled with the same rollercoaster-like inconsistencies as have plagued Phoenix all year.
The best player on the field in this game was Kevin Durantwho scored 31 points with nine rebounds and six assists. During the game, Durant jostled back and forth with a fan in attendance at State Farm Arena in a video that was later published on Instagram overtime.
“Stop talking to me, man,” Durant said. “You wouldn’t talk to me like this in real life. Don’t do that. Talk to me like a man. You wouldn’t talk to me like this if we were face to face.”
Durant has never been known for letting fans get away with trash talking, whether it’s creating a burnout account on social media to defend his reputation or personally confronting fans in stadiums, as he did in the video here.
A frustrating loss for the Suns
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In many ways, the Suns’ five-point loss to the Hawks on Tuesday served as a microcosm for their season. The team’s all-star trio of Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal combined for 77 points, but the team couldn’t get enough stops down the stretch and ultimately fell victim to Tree Young’s 43-point performance, playing without question his second team. and third-best players Jaylen Johnson and De’Andre Hunter.
The Suns now fall below .500 as the season approaches the midway point, and while they’ve been hit, injuries haven’t been a good excuse for their ineptitude of late.
While coach Mike Budenholzer’s decision to move Beal to the bench and cut Jusuf Nurkic out of the rotation entirely may have given the team a temporary spark, it’s become clear that there are deeper, more fundamental flaws present on this roster, and there’s no obvious way to fix them anytime soon. .
The Suns will next take the floor Thursday night against the Washington Wizards.
2025-01-15 18:13:00
