Suns’ Dillon Brooks ejected after Jamal Murray flagrant foul

PHOENIX– Dillon Brooks’s night is over after scoring 22 points in 21 minutes. He was ejected from Friday night’s game after a Flagrant Foul penalty two on Jamal Murray. The foul occurred when Brooks was going for a turnaround jump shot and subsequently kicked Murray in the groin area.

The officiating had been everywhere during the game, with a multitude of fouls being called in the Suns’ direction. Some of them were more ticky-tacky calls, but the flagrant foul wasn’t the culmination of something brewing.

During the third quarter, the physicality increased, but nothing out of the ordinary. Murray put more of his foot on the gas with scoring, which resulted in some of that aggression.

But again, it wasn’t anything malicious.

Still, that didn’t matter, as evidenced by Brooks’s foul. There was contact to Murray’s groin area, which the officials deemed as excessive and unnecessary.

Who will take Dillon Brooks’s place?

In addition to his 22 points, Brooks was shooting 75% from the field and knocked down four shots from beyond the arc. He is the definition of a microwave scorer, and something Phoenix doesn’t have much of.

Perhaps more importantly, his intensity is missed, especially in a tightly contested game like this. That singular factor can completely turn a game around.

Some guys like Jordan Goodwin can replicate that intensity to a significant degree, but not in the way Brooks can. And that’s not even mentioning the scoring element as well.

The Suns will have to rely more on Devin Booker, Miles Bridges, and Jalen Green to maintain their production. He was, and still is (as of writing this), the team’s top scorer.