Winning with defense; the Phoenix Suns have pulled a 180 on the season

PHOENIX – The sample size is small, yes, but the improvement the Phoenix Suns have made under interim head coach Jay Triano is as stunning as the Sedona red rocks and as enormous as the Grand Canyon.

A “defensive juggernaut” is what managing partner Robert Sarver called the team as Triano made his way back inside the locker room after meeting the media following Wednesday’s 97-88 win over the Utah Jazz.

The 88 points, it should be mentioned, is the fewest the Suns have allowed in more than two years.

And Sarver is not far off his assessment. The numbers prove it.

In two games since Triano took over, the Suns are allowing 101.5 points per game on 42.6 percent shooting including 31.9 percent 3-point shooting; numbers that rank 10th, seventh and 11th, respectively in the NBA during this stretch.

By comparison, there was no team worse than the Suns through the season’s first three games in those three categories: 128.7 points allowed, 51.5 percent shooting and 50 percent 3-point shooting.

“Just small things. Stance. Weakside. Activity. It’s kind of paid off,” Triano said Thursday, explaining the adjustments made defensively. “We were letting teams shoot 50-some percent from the 3 and we’ve trimmed that down a lot. It’s small things but it’s a variety of things. We learned more today and put in more today. It’s going to be a work-in-progress for quite a while.”

No player has stepped up their game on the defensive end of the floor more than guard Devin Booker. Focus and work ethic are two reasons why, according to Triano.

The work began in the summer.

“I knew it was going to come with time,” Booker said. “Obviously, going into the summer, I knew defense for me is something I had to take seriously. Studying people’s games. Even when I’m playing pickup games, I just go in—because I’m not in shape in the summer like I am during the season—so I’d come in and just be like, ‘I’m just playing defense today and offensive end I’m going to relax,’ Just coming in with that defensive mindset.

“I still got a lot to work on, obviously, but the better effort helps out a lot.”

And it’s effort the entire Suns team has shown in the last two games.

“Having 130 points scored against us, we were on pace to be the laughingstock of the league, really. I mean, no one has ever allowed that many points before, so it was just a thing with the whole team,” Triano said. “We got to commit to playing defense and players seemed to have bought in right now.”

TWIN TOWERS

When forward Marquese Chriss rolled his left ankle late in the fourth quarter on Wednesday, Triano inserted center Alex Len into the lineup, choosing to play Len and fellow big man Tyson Chandler together for the first time under Triano’s watch.

“It was because of matchups,” he said. “They had (Derrick) Favors and (Rudy) Gobert in the game. Had it been Joe Johnson, we probably would’ve put Dragan (Bender) in the game. At that point, I almost felt like we had enough points, and it was just our best defensive line on how to matchup against them so they couldn’t get anything going.”

The move worked as the Jazz missed four of their last seven field goal attempts with only one made shot inside the paint, where Chandler and Len had controlled the action all game long.

Chandler, by the way, recorded his third straight game with double-digit rebounds, giving him 50 boards through five games this season, the most by a player through five games in his 17th-or-later season since Karl Malone had 58 with the Lakers in 2003-04.

“Hard work, and then I’m getting a lot more opportunities because the pace of the game,” Chandler said. “We’re spreading the floor, less turnovers; a better opportunity to set the defense. I think, honestly, they’re going to continue to go up, to be honest.”

‘TONY BUCKETS’

Never one to take credit for his own success, forward T.J. Warren put the spotlight on his teammates, praising them for putting him in position to score as he did so well against the Jazz.

Warren had 10 points in each of the third and fourth quarters to give him 20 of his game-high 27 in the second half. The 27 points more than doubled his output from the previous two games combined, plus he shot the ball efficiently, making 12-of-20 attempts.

“I think he’s starting to get a feel for what he can do and where he can go on the floor,” Triano said. “We ran a play to start the second half to see if we could get his confidence going and he hit a wide-open shot. And from that point on, it was like bang, bang, bang, and it’s great to see him back as well.”

CHRISS UPDATE

At practice on Thursday, Chriss was a spectator, watching his teammates work as he received treatment on his sprained left ankle.

The Suns are officially calling Chriss day-to-day.

“It doesn’t seem to be as bad as we thought, the way it looked during the game,” Triano said. “We’ll just see how he progresses overnight.”

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