What we Learned from Back-to-Back losses to Denver
By Adam Maynes
Tip your cap to Denver – This season they had the Phoenix Suns’ Number
If you compare the rosters of the Phoenix Suns and Denver Nuggets, is there anyone who wouldn’t want the Suns’ roster over the Nuggets? Sure, Nikola Jokic would look very nice in the Phoenix purple and Orange, but from top to bottom the Suns seem to have a better roster, both for now, and the future.
And yet this season, Denver was the better team and in their head-to-head matchups and had the Suns’ number like no team has had in a very long time.
With that four-game matchup done for the season, we can take a brief opportunity to take a look back at the last two home-and-home matchups the two teams just completed, and see what it has taught about the Phoenix Suns moving forward.
The Phoenix Suns are not a good defensive team. I act like that is something new, but for five games at the end of the calendar year the Suns allowed an average of 95.2 points, a defensive stand that was very impressive. If you listened to local media at that time the conversation was how the Suns defense had suddenly improved and if this was a sign of big things to come. Alas, it was not. And once again Suns fans have been sold a bill of defensive goods that this will be the team that will excel defensively and that defense will be the focus over offense, yet the results just do not prove anything of the sort. Since that stretch the Suns have allowed 113.2 per game, and in their back-to-back losses to Denver the Phoenix defense allowed 125 points per game. The Suns gave up 120+ in the Nuggets’ four-game
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sweep, the first time the franchise has given up 120+ to an individual team in four games since doing so with the Indiana Pacers from 1988-90. Phoenix is now 0-13 this season when allowing 120+.
Bledsoe and Booker are playing at an exceptional level and may very well be comprising the most young and dynamic backcourt duo in the league. With two recent 40 point career-high games Eric Bledsoe is proving that he can take over a game offensively like the best of them. He is filling the stat sheet in a rarified manner, and if he finishes the season averaging a minimum 19p, 6a, and 5r, he would be one of five in franchise history to do so. Devin Booker too is seemingly scoring at will, and following his two games v Denver has scored 20+ in 12 consecutive games. This streak is not only a career-high for the Sophomore (his previous high was three) but the longest such streak since Amar’e Stoudemire scored 20+ in 18 consecutive games at the end of the 2007-08 season.
Phoenix is not going to make the playoffs. Yes I will admit, if you read my post from last week you know full well that I was on the “For the Love of all that’s good and mighty on this planet – Make the Playoffs!!” bandwagon, in fact, I was the President of that club. But, after two totally average losses to the Denver Nuggets – a team that in the second matchup wasn’t missing it’s best player in Nikola Jokic – it is abundantly clear that the Suns are not going to be playoff bound. Now 6.5 games out of eighth place, and all four games against the Nuggets who are in 8th place behind them, it appears that a playoff run now is almost an impossibility.
This past week Ryan McDonough played the consummate diplomat in an interview stating that if the Suns made a solid push for the playoffs before the trade deadline that he would consider the Suns buyers and not sellers. However, he said that if they faded, he would consider the Suns sellers and not buyers. Now 15-32 the Suns are only one game ahead of their pace from last season where they won 23 games. They are sitting in last in the Western Conference, and second worst in the league. With the trade deadline looming, the Suns now have 10 games before the trade deadline, and any hope they might have of becoming buyers very quickly looks to be nothing more than a pipe dream:
- 4 games are against teams currently slated to make the playoffs.
- 8 games are against the Western Conference: the Suns are 5-28 vs their home conference so far, the worst percentage in the franchise’s history against any individual conference.
- Their record against these teams so far is 1-6.
- Within the ten game stretch Phoenix plays the Memphis Grizzlies and New Orleans Pelicans twice, both teams in playoff contention.
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It seems likely that the Suns stand a fair shot of losing more than 50% of their next ten games heading into the All-Star break/trade deadline. Fortunately for management the losses will force their hand and any thoughts of buying talent to help make a playoff push for this season will be muted (if that was really Ever going to be the plan regardless of how this upcoming stretch went).
Here at Valley of the Suns we update fans on trade conversations, free agency options, and potential draft picks. Keep checking out of site to get the most in depth information on these topics you will find.
The playoffs may be out of the question, but improving the team will prove to be a lot of fun moving forward.