MILWAUKEE. – Suns forward Jae Crowder’s homecoming game was memorable for a lot of reasons.
The former Marquette standout returned to Wisconsin on Sunday (Monday in Manila) for Game 3 of the NBA finals with Phoenix leading 2-0 and delivered his best game of the series with six 3-point field goals. He was also on the wrong side of a series of Giannis Antetokounmpo highlights, including a personal seven-point run in the second quarter.
For the first time in the finals, the Suns rose in Milwaukee wondering what the rebound feels like.
“Whenever we win, we don’t get too high. You just move on to the next one,” said Crowder, who was also served a technical late in the game after one physical exchange with Antetokounmpo, who has back-to-back 40-point games. “You have a loss; you do the same. You gotta do it with more focus, obviously. But I’ve been preaching that. That’s all.
That’s my message, just respond to it in the right way and do it collectively and we’ll be fine.”
Crowder said the Suns are shifting their focus and reminding one another character wins this time of year.
“We’ll be fine. We’re going to watch film, going to talk this out. Going to man up to it,” Crowder said. “Coach is going to do a good job of showing what went wrong. We got to man up and do what we’ve been doing all year: just respond to it, respond to a defeat, respond to things not going our way. Like you said, we have been doing it all year. So, it’s no change now.”
