The Phoenix Suns faced off with the World Champion Golden State Warriors for the second time in the 2022-23 season, the second of four matchups, and the results of both games were Suns big victories.

The Warriors came in with an unbelievable streak that just doesn’t seem correct for a team the caliber of the world champs, coming in with a 0-7 record in road games so far in this early part of the campaign.

Whether losing close or big, the Warriors have not found the team chemistry and rhyme that won them Championships four out of the last six years.

Phoenix comes in with a very healthy level of respect for the Warriors but is setting the trend early that they are not going to shy away from showing the champs they are a team to be reckoned with.

After missing their opportunity in last year’s playoffs to face Golden State in a seven-game series with the chance to go to the Finals on the line, the Suns dropped the ball being eliminated by an inferior Dallas Mavericks team and looked as though they had lost their team chemistry as well.

A 29-point beat down in game one of this year’s matchups, and an intriging conflict situation between Devin Booker and Klay Thompson, resulted in Thompson being ejected leaving with only 2 points to show thru three quarters.

The Suns were starting new faces in two positions in their starting lineup, and the Warriors were just simply trying to find a lineup after their starters that will help keep them in games.

Team culture plays a very big part in team chemistry on the court as well as off the court, and both these teams have had a very rich history in great cultures.

Wednesday night’s game featured what has been going around the league as teams wearing their city edition uniforms, the uniform that represents what the city’s history is all about.

In the process, we have seen teams that are way outside of their normal team color schemes, and it has been very cool to say the least to see around the league.

The Phoenix Suns 2022-23 Nike NBA City Edition uniform honors Arizona’s 22 federally recognized indigenous tribes with its symbolic turquoise color and thoughtful design details. 

Players and coaches praised the uniforms and their reasoning for them sporting them this season, Coach Monty Williams had a very good response to the question from one of the Native reporters asking how they liked the uniforms, and Coach wax poetically 

The Player of the night for the Suns was fill-in starting point guard Cameron Payne, dropping a season and career-high 29 points and 7 assists, Payne ran the offense almost perfectly with exception of picking up two quick fouls but was able to stay aggressive and put tremendous pressure on the Warriors defense.

Payne was also 6 of 10 from behind the three-point line and helped ignite the Suns best three-point shooting performance this season with 21 made threes.

Suns also shared the ball for a high 33 assists, and Devin Booker and Mikal Bridges both recorded 9 each, after the game Booker stated “ That’s the way we want to play basketball, share the ball making sure everybody gets involved” 

Cam Payne added his 7 assists to the big number on the night, but also did what he’s always done, that’s bringing the energy and enthusiasm that somehow feels like it’s driving this team.

When asked about his dancing and energy by Arizona media outlet Shayla Crim of 3Fold news, Payne’s response was him recanting his declaration at the beginning of the year that he would hold back the dancing a bit and take things with a more business approach. 

Listen to his response:

The Suns are doing a very good job at staying very competitive at a high level and staying in the mix of the tops in the Western Conference after being so shorthanded. 

As the season is still very early there is much improvement to come to put this team close to where they were a year ago playing at a championship level, at some point the Jae Crowder eminent trade is bound to happen to strengthen the squad along with of course the return of Chris Paul and Cam Johnson, the Suns are a pretty good team from coaches to players lead by a very good culture.