3 things the Phoenix Suns need to do to beat the Denver Nuggets next year
By Luke Duffy
The 2022-23 season is now in the books, and a worthy champion in the Denver Nuggets have been crowned. Their dominant run through the postseason culminating in a five game beating of a Miami Heat outfit that defied all of the odds to get as far as they did, but which were no match for Nikola Jokic and his buddies in the end.
While the Nuggets have landed their first championship in franchise history thanks to some astute drafting, the hiring of a head coach in Michael Malone who was the right guy to lead this group, and making moves for players like Aaron Gordon at key moments, the Phoenix Suns continue to wait for their moment in the spotlight.
They will be back again next season to try and take the crown from the Nuggets, and will have to beat them in three key areas to achieve this.
As of right now, the Suns are trying to rework their roster to combat not only the Nuggets, but the rest of the Western Conference. This may mean that Chris Paul is ultimately waived, and that Deandre Ayton is traded to another team. We could even see the introduction of an in his prime player like Fred VanVleet, as the Suns look for any way to gain an advantage.
Stopping this Nuggets team is not going to be easy, and they have really set themselves apart from the rest of the league with this championship run. But Suns’ owner Mat Ishbia will be relishing the challenge of trying to catch the new champs, and he has been extremely aggressive in attempting to do so already.
Getting the better of the Nuggets is going to require improvement in many areas, but if the Suns can take any sort of solace from what transpired this season, then it is in the fact they pushed the Nuggets to six games in their second round series. Further than anybody else could manage, despite some of their best players being banged up.