Rebounding An Issue
The Suns rank 19th in the league in rebounds per game, averaging 42.5 boards per game. That’s not great, but it’s not exactly terrible either, especially when one considers the Atlanta Hawks rank 27th in that category and still have the second-best record in the NBA.
But no one can deny Phoenix has a knack for surrendering some pretty devastating rebounds, particularly late in games. The Suns give up 11.8 offensive rebounds per game, the fifth worst mark in the league. They also surrender a league-worst 15.3 second-chance points per game.
The Suns are capable of getting stops when they need to, but when they don’t close out those defensive possessions with a rebound, the defense usually gets caught sleeping over the course of the next 24 seconds when the shot clock resets. This team is built to defend for the first 24, get a rebound and push the tempo to turn misses into fast break opportunities.
We’ll get to the hotly debated “point guard hydra” in a bit, but suffice it to say that when Hornacek goes small, he’s giving other teams their best opportunity to capitalize on the offensive glass.
We’re not going to get into trade deadline specifics, because that’s worthy of an entirely separate article in and of itself, but if the Suns do decide to make a move before the Feb. 19 deadline, bringing in some rebounding and post defense will be their biggest areas of need.
Next: Takeaway No. 2 - Not Enough Minutes