The Phoenix Suns rounded off the regular season with a victory over the title favorites in the Oklahoma City Thunder, and now the Portland Trail Blazers stand between them and the playoffs.
Failure to win will give Phoenix a second chance to make it as the eighth seed and another, much longer and painful date with the Thunder, but this team can beat Portland in a one-off game.
Collin Gillespie is the difference-maker for the Suns
The Suns are 2-1 in games versus the Trail Blazers this season, and have the personnel to make this a long night for their opponents.
None more so than point guard Collin Gillespie, whose 30 points in an early February win was the most points scored by any player across their three meetings this season.
It gets better, as Gillespie was actually the joint-highest scoring player (19 points alongside Devin Booker) in their second win, while his 18 points was the most for the Suns in their loss back in late February.
The 26-year-old knows how to take advantage of the fact Portland doesn’t have a reliable defender to stick to him all night.
The presence of Booker is the reason why. Former Suns’ draft pick Toumani Camara will be busy guarding him, while both Dillon Brooks and Jalen Green also require a lot of defensive attention.
Grayson Allen will be missed, but this allows Gillespie to take advantage of being the option the Trail Blazers are forced to allow to operate in the kind of space he can do serious damage in.
Gillespie’s decision-making is his most important attribute to this group, and it is also going to ensure he is brought back to The Valley this offseason. But shooting over 40 percent from deep will be the real concern for the Trail Blazers.
Best of all from the perspective of the Suns, that decision-making ensures Gillespie takes those shots generally in the flow of the offense, while he’s even more comfortable teeing up his teammates.
Gillespie may be given the ultimate compliment and have Jrue Holiday draped all over him for parts of the game, or the Trail Blazers could get creative and attempt to put a bigger body on him.
But all that is going to do is ensure one of Booker, Brooks or Green (if he’s healthy) can abuse Scoot Henderson even more frequently than they surely already plan to. As has so often been the case this season, Gillespie has the potential to unlock the game for his team.
He has struggled for form compared to how he played in the first half of the season, but this is the perfect moment to send his team to the postseason and get paid this summer in the process.
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