Jazz give Suns reminder of last season’s missed opportunities
Picked to be among the worst teams in the Western Conference, the Utah Jazz reminded the Phoenix Suns of two things in a 118-91 drubbing in Salt Lake City on Saturday.
The first: there’s a reason Las Vegas set Phoenix’s over/under for total wins at 42.5. With only so many wins to go around in the NBA, injuries to the Oklahoma City Thunder and a stronger group of Western Conference bottom-feeders like the Jazz will create a little more evening out in the win-loss columns.
The Jazz also reminded the Suns that squandered games against sub-.500 teams led to a missed playoff opportunity last year.
The Suns are still young. After a win against San Antonio where the defense looked as good as it has in the Jeff Hornacek era, Phoenix put together arguably the worst defensive effort under the second-year coach. Hornacek’s group gave up 66 paint points, 35 fastbreak points and were outrebounded by 18. Forget that Derrick Favors scored a career-high 32 points. A good deal of his buckets were earned, at least in that the Suns were in position to stop him. He was just too much for Miles Plumlee and Alex Len.
The biggest concerns came in how many plays lacked both effort and smarts.
From the Arizona Republic’s Paul Coro:
"“We did some dumb rotations,” Hornacek said. “We weren’t very smart. We’re running to guys we shouldn’t run to and we’re running past guys. That’s part of being mentally strong and mentally tough when you’re a little tired. You have to still be able to think out there and I don’t think our guys thought very much. We were just running to guys. It didn’t matter who they were and leaving Gordon Hayward open.”"
This is what Hornacek was talking about.
Marcus Morris jumps out on Trevor Booker sitting in the corner, and while he’s hit 3-of-7 threes so far this season, the bruising power forward isn’t a player that the Suns must be sure to run off the line.
Take this next play as another example of the Suns simply being out of it. Utah point guard Trey Burke isn’t exactly forcing the issue on this transition look, giving Phoenix time to find their matchups. But Markieff Morris neither picks Burke up completely, nor recovers to his own man, Booker. Eric Bledsoe picks Burke up lackadaisically in assuming Morris is going to help trap Burke while he’s being forced baseline.
Burke notices the noncommittal attitude and dumps it off to Booker. Morris doesn’t work to recover, but none of the other four Suns commit either despite all of them sinking in. Count five players in the paint and none even trying to stop Booker.
Burke probably could have passed to either Gordon Hayward or Alec Burks on this play and gotten an open three. He had every option as all five Suns stood straight-legged.
Then there was this play, where Marcus Morris’ feet set roots into the floor as Hayward takes it to the hoop for a dunk. Morris only adds to Phoenix’s struggles by inbounding a ball to a lagging Burke — Hornacek has been open about the chance teams begin picking off inbound passes.
What’s all this mean? It’s fair to guess that the Jazz would have won even if the Suns showed up considering how difficult of a matchup they are for an undersized Phoenix team.
The return of P.J. Tucker will be more than welcome for a team that got punched in the mouth time and again and didn’t respond.
Like it was a night prior, the Suns struggled to hit from three-point range. They didn’t make up for that fact by getting to the foul line just 15 times. There will be growing pains as the Suns attempt to find the floor spacing that was lost with Channing Frye‘s departure. More than that, it’s about Goran Dragic and Bledsoe (he who has gone 6-for-26 from the field over the last two games) finding success on pick-and-roll plays with the Morris twins or the centers.
Add those offensive kinks to the defensive effort lacking, and it amounts to a blowout. The Suns can only hope it’s not another missed opportunity that bites them down the stretch.