Kevin Durant is still preaching patience.
With the Dallas Mavericks looking done for the 2024-25 season, a spot in the play-in tournament may have opened up for the Phoenix Suns. Dwindling as their playoff hopes might be over the past few weeks, Kevin Durant isn’t about to let his Suns just give up. On Tuesday night, they managed to secure a huge win over the Los Angeles Clippers thanks to a furious fourth quarter comeback en route to a 119-117 win.
This victory moves the Suns to 29-33 on the year, and with the Mavs on the downturn, the three-game gap between the two teams looks as surmountable as ever. But for Durant, he is imploring the team to simply take it one game at a time for nothing can be taken for granted in a league as tough as the NBA.
“Can’t think about the big picture too much. We’re in a tough position to think about the playoffs right now, so we gotta focus on each game, each task, each possession ahead of us and see what we can do,” Durant told Stephanie Ready of TNT in his postgame interview following the Suns’ victory.
“We’re in a tough position to think about the Playoffs right now, so we gotta focus on each game, each task, each possession.”
Kevin Durant 🗣️
(via @NBAonTNT)pic.twitter.com/FEnIbDHTvI
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) March 5, 2025
The schedule up ahead remains very brutal for the Suns. Their next six games will be coming against teams with a record better than .500 — including a crucial matchup against the Mavericks that will have playoff implications. In fact, only three of their final 20 games will come against sub-.500 teams.
The Suns will find it easier to navigate the upcoming stretch if they manage to avoid going down by a ton of points, necessitating a huge fourth-quarter effort just to get the win.