Phoenix Suns News: Paul Out With Thumb Fracture, Jokic Praises Williams, More Wow

Phoenix Suns News: Paul Out With Thumb Fracture, Jokic Praises Williams, More Wow

The top team in the NBA received some bad news over the weekend.

Per ESPN’s Tim Bontemps, Phoenix Suns All-Star point guard will be sidelined “for the next six to eight weeks” as he recovers from a fracture in his right thumb.

With that timeline, the Suns will hopefully have Paul back before the conclusion of the regular season. Phoenix closes out the regular season with a home tilt against the Sacramento Kings on Apr. 10.

Otherwise, the Suns should have the future Hall of Famer back in time for the postseason.

The good news for Phoenix is that they’ve built a comfortable cushion on the rest of the Western Conference. Coming out of the All-Star Break, the Suns (48-10) are 6.5 games up on the second-seeded Golden State Warriors for the league’s best record.

FanDuel lists the Suns and Warriors as the co-favorites to win the 2022 NBA Championship at +410. BetMGM Arizona sportsbook is currently offering customers up to $1,000 in risk-free bets.

“We’ve dealt with a lot already this year,” head coach Monty Williams said, per Bontemps. “We’ve lost multiple guys due to injury this year, and we’ve had things outside of basketball invade, so to think you’re going to go through an NBA season and not have adversity, it’s silly.”

Injuries have unfortunately plagued Paul throughout his career. He has only suited up for all 82 regular season games once in his career (2014-15). Paul missed eight regular season games for the Clippers in 2015-16, 21 games in 2016-17 and 24 in back-to-back seasons for the Houston Rockets in 2017-18 and 2018-19.

Phoenix will need Deandre Ayton and Devin Booker to shoulder more of the load going forward, but it would simply take a late-season meltdown of epic proportions for the Suns to cough up the NBA’s best record. They’re still in a great position to lock down home advantage throughout the entire NBA postseason.

Reigning MVP Nikola Jokic Compliments “Calm” Williams

The aforementioned Monty Williams served as the head coach for Team LeBron at Sunday’s 2022 NBA All-Star Game, leading his group to a thrilling 163-160 win over Team Durant.

Williams, who’s renowned for being the ultimate players coach, made the All-Star Weekend that much more enjoyable for Denver Nuggets superstar and reigning league MVP Nikola Jokic.

The 27-year-old Jokic was full of praise for coach Williams following the All-Star Game, per Kurt Helin of Pro Basketball Talk.

“If I take one thing from this All-Star, it’s going to be Monty Williams,” Jokic. “He touched me as a person. This is a man, a human being, he’s calm, you feel like you can talk to him about anything. He surprised me with that.”

Jokic played 21 minutes at the All-Star Game in Cleveland, Ohio. He posted 10 points, eight assists and nine rebounds in Team LeBron’s victory. Stephen Curry led the team with 50 points, with Giannis Antetokounmpo and LeBron James compiling 30 and 24 points, respectively.

Last year, Williams’ Suns swept Jokic’s Nuggets in the second round of postseason play en route to an NBA Finals appearance. Denver comes out of the All-Star break with a 33-25 record, which places them sixth in the Western Conference and currently out of the play-in territory.

Suns Retain Top Spot in NBA & ESPN Power Rankings

The Suns will be without Chris Paul for the foreseeable future, but their record is all you need to see in order to understand why they remain the team to beat in the Western Conference.

It won’t come as a surprise that Phoenix maintained the No. 1 spot in the power rankings over at NBA.com and ESPN.com.

The Suns’ sluggish 1-3 start feels like a lifetime ago. Remarkably, they’ve gone 47-7 ever since, having lost just two games in the new year.

An 18-game winning streak (snapped by Golden State on Christmas Day) was eventually followed up by an 11-game winning streak that the Atlanta Hawks snapped on Feb. 3. Phoenix hasn’t lost a game ever since, winning their final seven games ahead of the All-Star break.

The Suns return to the court on Thursday for a road game against the Oklahoma City Thunder (8:00 p.m. EST). Phoenix will then return to The Desert for a four-game homestand that begins against the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday (9:00 p.m. EST).

The post Phoenix Suns News: Paul Out With Thumb Fracture, Jokic Praises Williams, More Wow appeared first on iGaming.org.

Source: igaming