Jusuf Nurkic was largely responsible for the Phoenix Suns suffering an 83-99 loss against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday night. There was no denying that the Bosnian big man failed to dominate the paint against the Chet Holmgren-less Thunder. However, Devin Booker refused to pin the blame on his teammate.
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The Suns’ loss at Paycom Center was followed by an awkward locker-room interview between Booker and a reporter. The latter indirectly blamed Nurkic for being unable to impose his size advantage on OKC, which has turned out to be a problem in recent games.
“I feel like the size advantage, you guys didn’t take full advantage of that. Why do you think that was tonight?” the reporter asked.
Even though Nurkic’s name wasn’t mentioned, it seems like D-Book instantly figured out what the reporter implied. Hence, he chose not to answer, preventing any pin-pointing for the loss.
“That’s a good question,” Book responded without saying anything further, even after being pressed by the reporter.
Nurk has him lost for words lmao pic.twitter.com/nvEAgBqb6l
— A ✩ (@adryanashton) November 16, 2024
The shooting guard displayed impressive leadership by not throwing Nurkic under the bus. But the fact of the matter remains that the 7-footer had an awful outing.
The Thunder were playing without Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein, and Jaylin Williams. This forced Mark Daigneault to use a small-ball lineup with the 6ft 5” Jalen Williams being the tallest Thunder starter.
Despite having a seven-inch advantage over Williams, Nurk failed to produce even a mediocre performance. In almost 30 minutes of playing time, he shot 0-7 from the field and finished the night with a box plus-minus of -10.
His offensive struggles were not compensated on the other end of the floor as well, which allowed the Thunder to score almost half of their total points (48 points) in the paint.
It was also evident that the team is struggling to get clean looks at the rim with Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal sidelined with injuries. Until the two All-Stars make their return to the lineup, Nurkic will need to step up his game and help Book to lead the team to wins. If not, the Arizona side can quickly tumble down the stacked Western Conference’s standings.
