Dillon Brooks Isn’t Backing Off Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Battle

The Phoenix Suns need an answer. Quickly.

Falling behind 1-0 in their first-round series against the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Suns will need to completely flip the script on their approach to the defending NBA champs as Wednesday rolls around for Game 2 action.

Suns coach Jordan Ott made post-game comments on Phoenix's inability to isolate OKC defenders over the course of a game, though the always confident Dillon Brooks isn't backing down from the challenge this early in the series.

"I think it is, but I'm going to iso Shai when I get a chance to," Brooks told reporters on Tuesday (h/t Duane Rankin).

"Why not? He's a good defender overall, but I just like the matchup. Team Canada, we've been going at it for awhile. I won't forget our 1-on-1s that we had in Paris. You can ask him who got the best of who, but you see a guy like that going hard on the offensive end all game and trying to get a rest on defense.

"I'll find a way make him use his legs, use his hands, use his mind on that defensive end, most of the time, he's going to break down and then you can go out and make plays."

The Thunder, one of the best defensive teams in the league, have both the length and pure defending ability to lock down even the best of scorers.

Brooks found out the hard way, as he was riding high entering this matchup after establishing a new career high in points before scoring 18 points on just 6-22 shooting from the field in Game 1.

OKC is sure to do a few things differently even after their emphatic win over Phoenix, as head coach Mark Daigneault says the Thunder can't play guessing games when it comes to the Suns.

"In terms of anticipating what they'll do, we try to look at it more like a menu and less like a prediction. We're not going to try to guess. You don't know what they're going to do. There's a lot of different directions they could go in," he said Monday.

"We try to understand what all those directions are. Could be different lineups. It could be different tactics. Could just be the same ones and try to execute them better. We try to account for all that. Just make sure we've got contingencies. Make sure our team has contingencies. A lot of that is just building those contingencies during the regular season so that we're not introducing new material right now and then we get in the game and we see what's going on.

"That's how we approach every game. Once you get into the habit of guessing, you're just chasing a bunch of ghosts and that's just distracting from the main stuff."

Will Brooks get those coveted matchups against Gilgeous-Alexander? With Suns guard Jordan Goodwin dealing with a calf injury, Brooks may draw the SGA assignment on both ends of the court.