Suns showing ideal trait to be competitive too late in the season

The Phoenix Suns entered Friday night's nationally televised game versus the Denver Nuggets about as high as we've seen them all season. The reason for this was an extremely promising comeback victory over the L.A. Clippers - also on national television - prior to the matchup in Denver, which also served as the biggest comeback in franchise history.

For whatever reason the Suns also matchup somewhat favorably against the Nuggets as well. The pair trading victories over one another already this season - two to Denver and one to Phoenix - and with head coach Mike Budenholzer having finally conceded on some of the self-imposed rules he had put on the rotation for much of the campaign.

Which made this loss to the Nuggets all the more frustrating.

Conceding 149 points in an overtime loss here - somehow not even as bad as the 151 the Memphis Grizzlies hung on them a couple of weeks back - was obviously not ideal. Neither was the fact the Nuggets were able to get pretty much whatever they wanted through three-quarters of this one, scoring at will from every area of the court.

That passiveness defensively has been the Suns' biggest problem this season, and everybody from Devin Booker to Kevin Durant have commented on this to the media. Only much like the eventual win over the Clippers, the Suns woke up in the fourth, and at one point came all the way back once again to tie the game.

They came up short, but that is now two games in a row against some of the better teams in the Western Conference that Phoenix has shown it can hang around and compete. It is just such a shame that it takes going down by so much - and at this late stage of the season - for the group to wake up and become the best version of themselves on the defensive end.

Had the Suns played like this earlier in the season, they wouldn't have had unacceptable losses to the likes of the Charlotte Hornets. They also had the worst defensive rating in February - which is when this season was really lost - but the last two games have shown us that it didn't have to be that way. Nobody will be surprised if the Nuggets end up in the Western Conference Finals.

Yet with their backs to the wall the Suns finally gave them a game - and although Nikola Jokic had a frankly ridiculous stat line - the Nuggets needed every bit of it in order to get the win down the stretch. On top of that, Booker and Durant had four points in the first-quarter, before going off for 19 combined in the second.

With Bol Bol now in the starting lineup alongside Nick Richards and Bradley Beal, the Suns clearly need their top two players to be aggressive from the off. Yet it was Beal who was leading the charge early on - and although that too was a welcome sight for the franchise - it also explains why the Suns are where they are.

Which makes this all the more frustrating. This Suns team might not crack 40 wins, unthinkable at the beginning of the season. But we have now seen that - when they really put their minds to it - this roster can pile up points on good teams, and at least try to a level that hasn't been there defensively all season. If that had been the case in November, this would all look very different.