Suns’ Monty Williams appears pissed off with the inequality of the free throw in Recreation 3, says Deandre Ayton

Suns manager Monty Williams didn’t go as far as to directly criticize the reigning crew working on Game 3 of the NBA Finals, but he did have some, uh, observations.

After the Bucks’ 120-100 win on Sunday night, Williams was asked about the difficulty of putting together a strong rotation in advance while Deandre Ayton sat on the bench. The 22-year-old center got off to a hot start, scoring 12 of his 18 points in the first quarter but struggled with fouls in the second half.

MORE: The best highlights from Game 3 of the NBA Finals

Ayton was substituted off after picking up his fourth foul with 10:25 remaining in the third quarter and pulled again after being called for his fifth foul with 8:54 remaining in the final frame. He only played 24 minutes in Game 3.

“I’m not going to publicly complain about fouls. I just won’t,” Williams said during his post-game media availability. “But you can see – we had 16 free throws tonight. One person had 17. So [Ayton] is – we have to learn from it. We have to get to the point with the guys. It will grow, I promise you. “

Suns trainer Monty Williams on Deandre Ayton’s nasty problems and the free throw discrepancy between the Suns and the Bucks pic.twitter.com/ausWiegG0h

– Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) July 12, 2021

Williams was referring to Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo, who fired 17 free-throw attempts, compared to 16 for the entire Suns list. (Milwaukee shot 26 as a team.) It should be noted, however, that Antetokounmpo has been among the leaders in free-throw attempts in recent seasons and Phoenix averaged 18.7 free-throw attempts per game in the 2020-21 regular season. the second lowest grade in the NBA.

Phoenix tried 16 shots in the restricted area all night and GIannis tried 12 alone. Based on that only, you would expect them to have a similar FT volume. https://t.co/pkuamPcdcm

– Anchorage Man (@SethPartnow) July 12, 2021

When asked how to lead Ayton through nasty problems, Williams chose his words carefully, but he clearly intended to send a message about what he believed to be inconsistent calls.

“Yeah, that’s a tough one. I don’t even want to go there,” said Williams. “It’s pretty self-explanatory. We have to find out or define what a legal guard position is because he can get his hands out of the way sometimes, but it’s hard to tell a man what to do when someone meets him.” You, you know what I mean, sometimes I don’t know what a guardian post is.

“But they were aggressive and we have to give them credit. I’m not going to sit here complaining about an aggressive team. But we have to understand what the referees call the game and then adjust to a lot of physicality in the game, sure, but as for him, we have to watch the movie and see where he can have better body position and some accusations as they come up. “

Williams may get a call from the league office regarding his comments, but if a little skill gives the Suns a better whistle in Game 4, he won’t care about the consequences.