Two-way players TyTy Washington Jr. and Jalen Bridges led the way for the Valley Suns
G League teams most often try to adhere to the styles of their NBA counterparts, which made for an interesting matchup between the Valley Suns and the San Diego Clippers on Friday.
San Diego had its defensive stands, but the Suns broke through for enough stretches of a big 124-105 win at Mullett Arena.
The Suns have thrived off playing a wide-open game with a high-octane pace led largely by its guards, TyTy Washington Jr., Collin Gillespie and David Stockton. However, the latter two were not available.
Washington finished with 22 points while fellow two-way player Jalen Bridges added 23. Clippers two-way wing Trentyn Flowers had 34.
Without Gillespie or Stockton, the Clippers were able to bog down — much like their Los Angeles counterpart — the Suns’ offense and muck things up a bit early. It led to nearly as many turnovers (five) as 3-point attempts (six) over the game’s first nine minutes or so.
But while Valley has struggled at times with defending the paint and in transition, it held down the Clippers on the perimeter to 0-for-6 3-point shooting, winning the first frame 32-28 after it made 4-for-8 deep looks.
The offense broke through even more in the second quarter, as the Suns started to play out in transition and freely get the deep looks up. Olin Carter III had two deep makes sandwiching a highlight sequence where Jaden Shackelford hooked Jalen Bridges up with a behind-the-head feed for a dunk.
Jalen + Jaden showing ’em how it’s done pic.twitter.com/1DCMjERlps
— Valley Suns (@GLeagueSuns) February 1, 2025
San Diego would get back in it as Valley went quiet for a stretch of about 2:30 late in the half but the Suns would lead 57-53 as the teams left for the locker room.
After the third quarter started out especially physical with a hint of chippiness, Washington eventually took over to pour in 13 points without playing the entire frame as the Suns elongated their lead to a point comfortable enough to cruise through the fourth quarter, where their lead surpassed 20.
The late cruising was a reminder how sticking to the high-volume-of-3s philosophy can pay dividends, as Valley entered the game leading the G League in 3-point rate with the gap between it and second place matching the gap between second and eighth.
Phoenix, on the other hand, has not always had the same benefit of math this season, in fact it’s more often been the opposite.
Valley came into the night averaging 45.3 attempts per game and got up 45 on Friday, making 44.4% of them to post math that was impossible for San Diego (26.9% on 26 attempts) to match.