Three Threes in 90 Seconds: How Koby Brea Saved His Summer League With One Explosive Night

LAS VEGAS — Two games into NBA Summer League, Koby Brea looked like the guy who forgot how to shoot. Six threes and 18 points later, he looks like the guy who signed a two-way deal with the Suns for a reason.

Monday night in Vegas, Brea flipped the script. He poured in six shots from deep, including two in the final 90 seconds that slammed the door on a win and sent a message to anyone watching: the shooter is back.

“I just trust my work,” Brea told reporters after the game. “I haven’t been playing to the level that I feel like I should have been. But at the end of the day, I’m gonna just trust my work every single day. I’m just rolling with the chips where they fall.”

The first two games of Summer League didn’t go that way. Brea struggled. His shot looked off. His confidence seemed shaky. For a guy who broke out in a big way last season, it felt like a step backward. But Summer League gives you four games before the tournament rounds, not two. And in game three, Brea showed why the Suns gave him that qualifying offer in the first place.

That night, he didn’t just make shots. He made the shots. When the game got tight, Brea stretched the defense and let it fly. His teammates kept feeding him, and he kept cashing in.

“I appreciate my teammates, you know, trusting me and believing in me every moment of the game, all three of these games,” Brea said. “It’s definitely been helping me a lot.”

Brea’s two-way deal means he’ll get reps, but the clock is ticking

Here’s the thing about Koby Brea and the Suns: everyone knows he can shoot. That’s never been the question. It’s everything else. Defensive consistency. Playmaking. Rebounding. The gaps in his game are real, and Summer League tends to expose them.

Guys like Khaman Maluach and Rasheer Fleming have already shown they can hang with the main roster. Rookie Koa Peat is making a case for real minutes. Brea, the former Kentucky guard, is still trying to prove he belongs in that conversation.

He knows it too.

“It’s kind of tough to balance that, but at the same time, you gotta do what’s gonna keep you on the floor,” Brea said. “I know what they expect out of me and what they want out of me. For me, that’s really the biggest thing that I’m trying to show. I know that they know I can make shots, and so they’re not too concerned about that. They’re more just want to see the other things that I can do.”

Being on a two-way deal means Brea will get plenty of developmental reps. But it also means there’s a limited window to prove he’s more than a specialist. His two fellow second-year players are already ahead of him in the pecking order. That’s the reality.

If Monday night was any indication, though, Brea isn’t done yet. The old saying about it not being how you start but how you finish? It might end up being the story of his entire summer.