G League Recap: Valley Suns cruise by Rip City Remix on ASU Night

The G League Suns weren’t challenged much in the contest, despite missing two of their three two-way players.

The Valley Suns maintained a 20-point lead through much of a 135-109 win over the Rip City Remix on Tuesday.

Mamadi Diakite had his hands all over the game, tallying 20 points, 15 rebounds, six assists, two steals and two blocks (31 minutes) in the win. Cassius Stanley had a team-high 25 points.

Valley head coach John Little said Diakite’s performance was a byproduct of his solid development while being coached at Virginia by Tony Bennett. For Stanley, this was just scratching the surface after surgery over the summer forced him to slowly roll his way back.

Two-way wing Jalen Bridges — the only two-way active for Valley with TyTy Washington Jr. and Collin Gillespie up with Phoenix — scored the game’s first bucket on an interception he took the other way for a dunk. He scored seven of the Suns’ first nine points.

Bridges has been solid in the G League as a rookie, scoring in double digits in 26 out of 30 games through the Tip-Off Tournament and regular season.

However, he’s yet to post the kind of individual standout performance that prompts NBA call-ups, with 26 points standing as his career high since back-to-back games on Nov. 8-9.

With a 9-5 lead thanks to Bridges outscoring Rip City by himself, Valley extended the lead to 19-9 with a 10-4 run. David Stockton keyed it with two assists and a score for himself, and the Suns maintained a comparable lead the rest of the quarter.

Recent Valley addition Nate Pierre-Louis made his home debut after making his first appearance in a road loss to his former squad, the South Bay Lakers, on Saturday.

The 6-foot-4 guard has some clear funk to his game, tossing creative passes and using creative angles to find driving lanes. He knocked down a 3 for his first points with the team, part of a 10-0 Suns run to start the second quarter.

The Suns cruised to a 77-57 halftime lead by going 8-for-16 (50%) from deep while holding Rip City to 6-for-16 (37.5%) marks. They also had just half the turnovers that the Remix did in the first 24 (6-12).

Testiness from late in the first half bled over into the second when a transition take foul by the Remix led to the two sides getting in each other’s face and needing to be separated. The beef resulted in offsetting technical fouls for Diakite and Rip City’s Craig Randall II, a Phoenix Shadow Mountain High alum.

Earlier before the break, Rip City guard — and former lottery pick — James Bouknight earned a swift ejection for something he said from the bench. He and Randall were among the most impactful Remix players on the night, leaving their team hamstrung.

Even with the personnel peril it was facing, Rip City challenged late in the third quarter and cut its deficit to as little as 13, but its inability to cool down the Suns from distance proved fatal as Valley’s lead ballooned as high as 28.

Pierre-Louis finished with 11 points in his Tempe debut while Randall led the Remix with 33.

How was ASU Night different from other Valley Suns games?

It’s only fitting that the G League club should hold an ASU-themed night, given that it plays its home games at the home of Sun Devil hockey on the Tempe campus.

Naturally, all the stops were brought out, including the Sun Devil spirit squad, Sparky, and an alumna singing the national anthem.

The famous Curtain of Distraction made the trip across Rural Road as well, assisting the Suns in second-half free-throw defense.

Plus, enough Sun Devils got the memo that just about the entire crowd on hand self-identified as a current or former ASU student.

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