Breaking Down The Phoenix Suns’ 2015-16 Schedule Piece By Piece

February and March

First impressions

For the Suns, its quite simple: These two months suck.

In theory, February should be great for the team. Nine of the Suns’ 10 games will be played at home, which has to be refreshing. It’s obviously their longest home stand of the season, and a longer stretch than any road trip they’ll play throughout the 2015-16 campaign. However, the strength of their opponents makes it a little more difficult than it might seem on the surface.

In February, the Suns are going to be playing tough teams night after night, and while there is a big let-up in the competition in March, the schedule balances out with more road games and back-to-backs.

A lot more.

The Suns really need to come into February with loads of momentum, or they could be in a lot of trouble. Overall, we’re going to learn a lot about the Suns as they go through the gauntlet of playing eight of their 10 games against opponents who are basically playoff locks this year.

If they can manage not to get discouraged, the winnable games are there in March. However, February is going to be where we learn the most about the Suns. How resilient are they? How will they fare if they make the playoffs? How much has everyone developed?

Travel/Rest

Overall, these two months could not be any more different. The Suns play exactly 90 percent of their games in February at home, with one back-to-back, while playing less than 33 percent of their games at home in March, with three back-to-backs.

I’ll say it again: These two months suck.

As far as rest is concerned, the Suns average exactly one game every two days (if you remove the giant gap in the middle for All-Star weekend), so that’s really not of note, other than to say it isn’t heavily skewed in one direction or the other.

However, in March everything just kind of sucks for the team. They will be flying into a new city for every single game except for one, meaning that when they have a home game, it’s sandwiched by road games except for the game on Mar. 23 against the Lakers.

So basically what I’m saying is the players are going to feel a lot like George Clooney’s character in Up In The Air once March rolls around. Tyson Chandler is starting to get up there in age…maybe he’s getting close to 10 million miles too….

Matchups

For the Suns, the All-Star break comes at a really difficult time. They’ll be coming off three games against the probable top six in the West (see below) heading into the break, and afterward, they’ll have to play three more tough games in four days, as they’ll take on the Rockets, Spurs and Clippers.

The most important thing for the Suns will be to pick up games wherever they can. For example, the Suns absolutely need to win (at least) two of their three games vs. Toronto, Utah and Brooklyn in February, because if they drop one of those games, they’re going to need to make it up against a Memphis, San Antonio or Golden State.

That doesn’t seem very likely.

If the Suns take care of business against only the lower teams, they can still emerge from these two months with a positive record. However, their resolve is definitely going to be tested with all the road games, not to mention team/chemistry issues that come with losing games in a difficult stretch. This is really where the addition of Tyson Chandler as a mentor will be key.

Predictions

Let me start off by saying it’s not ridiculous to suggest the Suns will go 2-8 in February, despite playing nine of their 10 games at home. The schedule is just absolutely absurd, and that, coupled with a ton of travel in March could make for a very, very ugly stretch.

If the Suns can manage to win more than half their games in these two months, it should be considered a big, big win. However, given the amount of travel, a combined record of 11-15 or 10-16 isn’t out of the realm of possibility, especially if they go 2-8 or 1-9 in February.

Bottom line: 14-12 (41-34)

Realistic best-case Feb./March scenario: 16-10 (49-26)

Realistic worst-case Feb./March scenario: 10-16 (31-44)

Next: Ending on a high note...