Suns notebook: Improvement defensively, James’ recent struggles

There was nowhere to go but up defensively after the Phoenix Suns’ first three games of the season.

Giving up 124, 130 and 130 points again in those losses to open the season left a low starting point for where the team was at as a defensive unit.

While they rank 26th in the NBA in defensive rating this season, they’ve had noticeable improvement under interim head coach Jay Triano. In the time since Triano took over, the Suns have had a slight jump to 21st in defensive rating.

For the standard expectations of such an inexperienced team, Phoenix will take anything outside the bottom-five, where they have been for the past two seasons.

Triano has spoken about the increased effort by the team and individual players, such as Devin Booker, but believes their collective focus is a weakness.

“There’s one or two or three or four possessions out of 10 where we’ll take a possession off and you can’t do that,” Triano said before Monday’s game against the Brooklyn Nets. “The good teams are solid through their defensive possessions on a continual basis all the time. We need them at a 10 percent over the course of the game, not at a 30 or 40 percent.”

MIKE JAMES’ STRUGGLES

Rookie point guard Mike James was impressive at the start of the season. The 27-year-old was averaging 13 points and 3.7 assists per game while shooting a respectable 44.4 percent through seven games of his first NBA season.

Since the start of November, however, it’s been a struggle.

In three games, James is averaging 7.3 points per game and is 6-of-31 (19.4 percent) from the field. It’s worth noting that his backup Tyler Ulis has shot an even worse 4-for-23 (17.4 percent) over that stretch.

No matter how well others are playing on the team, the Suns will need better play from their point guards to win games.

Triano said the struggles are all about James getting acclimated to the difficulty of the NBA.

“It’s a matter of figuring out the league,” Triano said. “He’s played more games in the last week than he did over a month in Europe. The league is tough, this league is relentless.”

It’s easy to forget that James has been vaulted directly into a starting role since Eric Bledsoe left the team with no NBA experience. And despite his solid play in those initial games, he will have to continue to adjust.

“There’s nothing wrong with the way Mike’s playing. His shots are good shots, we want him taking those shots. They’re not falling right now.

“The other thing we tell these guys about is people in this league figure you out and you better have a next move because if you can only go left or you can only go right and that’s all you can do they’re going to figure you out and then you’re gonna be in trouble.”

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