The Phoenix Suns are 2-2 to start the 2018-19 season, although literally four points away from being 4-0. Here are three stats that help prove that this team is for real.
Following the Phoenix Suns’ last second loss to the Utah Jazz, Devin Booker noted that the referees are not on his team’s side, but that in time, they will.
Speaking to reporters, Booker stated that “they’ll eventually learn that this is us. This is not a fluke and we’re supposed to be winning these games.”
A solid perspective from a hyper-competitive star player, the very point of view that a franchise wants to hear from a cornerstone piece.
But Devin Booker knows as well as his teammates that while the league’s officials might not be “on his team’s side” (obviously that is not a quote but a paraphrase of the idea), the Phoenix Suns will only get the calls that Book believes his team deserves to get when his team starts winning on their own.
If the Suns want to take games out of the official’s hands, they cannot be in within a possession or two in the final few moments of a game, a situation that can allow foolish or faulty refs to take the game away from Phoenix.
Booker knows that the Suns have to start building up leads that no amount of poor officiating can take from them, and those leads need to be developed early.
Fortunately, it does not appear that the Suns’ 2-2 record is a fluke and they can eventually reach a point in which they are so much better than their opponents that they can win games well before the final buzzer with relative frequency.
There are a number of legitimate statistics that actually appear to point into the direction that this Phoenix Suns team is for real, and while speaking about the playoffs at this time might still be a bit premature, if they keep up this early pace (and actually pull out these one-possession games more often than not), they will be able to make a decent run at the postseason.
Imagine this too: Deandre Ayton is an integral piece of this roster, and he is out until mid-December.
Granted the team is now 1-2 without him, but even in his absence thus far, Phoenix has a positive point differential at +6.
The key to that stat is that it is through three games.
The Suns had a point differential of +6 only 12 times the entire 2018-19 season.