The Suns came out flat offensively and dug themselves into a hole early - again - in this game. Down by 17 at the end of the first quarter, they couldn’t fight their way back into the game even with a 32 point, 11 assist performance by Devin Booker.
The Hornets out shot the Suns 54.5% to 44.8% from the field and 47.1% to 33.3% from three but the killer in this game was the fact that the Suns were out rebounded 53 to 26. The Hornets actually committed 10 more turnovers than the Suns (17 to 7) but that turned into a non-factor because of the rebounding discrepancy.