Suns Practice: Slight Changes To The Technical Foul Rule

With the Super Bowl in town this week and US Airways Center packed with NFL players (who were just there so they wouldn’t get fined) and journalists (who were just there so they wouldn’t get fired), the Phoenix Suns held their practice at the court at Robert Sarver’s house.

Here are some of the more notable tidbits from the practice as the Suns prepare for the Washington Wizards tomorrow night.

Suns Still Playoff Hopeful

With US Airways Center booked for Super Bowl Media Day, head coach Jeff Hornacek said the team had a great practice offsite in preparation for tomorrow’s game against Washington.

“These guys, they want to win. We talked about a couple of things today and had the day off yesterday so I think they had some energy that they wanted to expend,” Hornacek said in a media conference call after practice. “You know, I think these guys realize that they’re pretty close and if we just shore up some certain things, they can get in these playoffs.

Brandan Wright Cleared

After missing Phoenix’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers with a sore left heel on Sunday, Hornacek said Wright’s foot is a little sore, but that he practiced Tuesday and will play tomorrow night against the Wizards.

When Markieff Morris received a technical foul less than two minutes into the third quarter against Lob City, Hornacek benched him for the remainder of the game. This hurt the Suns’ frontcourt depth and sparked some conversation about the merits of the rule, as the Suns were outscored 62-40 the rest of the way with Wright also out for the game.

Changes To The Technical Foul Rule?

The biggest headline for the Suns over the last few days has been Hornacek’s controversial rule for technical fouls that states simply, “If you get a T for arguing with an official, you’re benched for the rest of the game.”

What seemed like an idle threat at first quickly became reality when Goran Dragic was benched against the Houston Rockets after picking up a technical, and then again when Morris picked up one against the Clippers.

Hornacek said he once again addressed the issue with his team, mentioning some slight changes to a rule many criticized as being too harsh for a playoff-hopeful squad.

"“We talked about it,” he said. “We’ve tried both ways and we’re just going to try to do a better job as a team, as teammates, to corral each other when they start to argue. The guys came up with that.“They have been better, it hasn’t been — you know both Goran and Keef’s technical, it wasn’t constant yelling, it was just a couple of times. So I told them, ‘Hey, if you guys do that, and kind of help each other out there on the court, we’ll kind of look at it and it might be my discretion whether we do it for the rest of the game so we don’t have that necessarily hard rule.’ But I may still sit them for the end of the game if I feel like it and they know that.”"

Since Hornacek implemented the new rule following a loss to the San Antonio Spurs, the Suns have received three technical fouls in seven games, with only two being from arguing with officials.

With players holding each other more accountable, Hornacek hopes it will help his teams avoid Ts and build better chemistry in the process.

“I think we have to [put some responsibility on the players],” he said. “Like I said, we’ve tried both ways. Them helping each other, good chemistry teams do that.”

Focus On Defense

The Suns are ranked 20th in defensive efficiency this year, and despite having Eric Bledsoe, P.J. Tucker and Alex Len — all respectable defenders for their positions — Phoenix’s high-scoring offense often clashes with its bottom-10 defense.

Hornacek said the Suns’ level of competition has played a factor in the way Phoenix’s defense looks at times:

"“I think it’s magnified with the type of teams we’re playing. We’re playing some of the top teams in the league, so we have to do it every play and they put you into bad positions every once in a while, and you have to adjust on the fly, it’s not all in the scouting report. That’s all part of the experience of reading what’s going on out there and helping each other out. Sometimes you can get away with it when you’re playing a .500 team, but when you’re playing a top team, they take advantage, you know, four of five times of when you’re not in the right spot.”"

Luckily, the Suns played one of their best defensive games of the season the last time they played Washington, emerging with a 104-92 victory on the road.

Next: Phoenix Suns: Defending Hornacek's Technical Foul Policy