Suns still searching for breakthrough, lose 3rd straight to Warriors

The Phoenix Suns got off to a concerning 1-4 start last year before becoming one of the feel-good stories of the NBA season.

After Monday’s 116-113 loss to the Golden State Warriors, here they sit once more at 1-4.

This time it feels different, primarily due to expectations.

With so much made about Phoenix’s continuity and cohesion going into the year, the Suns will instead have to spend the beginning portions of the season figuring out how to jell. Whether that clicks into place quickly or is more of an elongated process, the turbocharged quick-start we thought we’d be seeing based on last year’s identity is nowhere to be seen.

How much should this create concern? Or even panic? And how long will it take? Feel free to answer those questions as you see fit, but five basketball games is not enough to make a choice on that, and instead has just established the aforementioned fact that these Suns have a ton of work to do over the next few weeks to get their season back on track.

After the Warriors sat six of their seven best players for Phoenix’s win in the second game of the season, they flipped their approach on the three games in four days by resting players for Sunday’s victory against the Clippers.

Stephen Curry and Draymond Green both played, as did Brandin Podziemski, after all three were out for that previous matchup.

The Suns played their most complete quarter of the season to begin the night, outscoring the Warriors 31-19 and leading by as many as 17, before the middle quarters showed a lot of leakage defensively. Phoenix is getting more concrete defensive efforts as a team on a possession-to-possession basis but still commits far too many individual mistakes that undo all of the good work before that.

Golden State had 32 and 42 points in those two periods, respectively, and the Suns were still scoring enough to hang around. But anytime they score 36 like they did in the third quarter and get outscored by six, that’s an issue.

As Devin Booker picked up his fifth foul early in the fourth quarter and went to the bench, bad decisions with the ball from Jalen Green and Miles Bridges made it look like the Suns were about to tail-spin. But big baskets from Green, Bridges and Dillon Brooks spurred a 9-0 run to put the Suns back up two with 5:29 remaining.

With Phoenix down one and under two-and-a-half minutes to go, a perfect play design out of a timeout got Booker a turnaround 12-footer he makes in his sleep, a shot he missed. Brooks was then caught by Curry playing too physical and sacrificed free throws, before Curry stripped Booker on an isolation to lead to Warriors free throws in transition.

Green then committed his third turnover of the quarter after he was having one of the best decision-making games of his Suns career. Curry missed his deep attempt at a dagger 3, but that was salvaged after De’Anthony Melton drew a foul on Booker for bumping him to create space with his pivot foot down, fouling him out of the game with Phoenix trailing by five and 58 seconds remaining. That just about did it from there.

Booker was having a fairly balanced game for three quarters of a night he spent large chunks of defending Curry but couldn’t ultimately take over the game when he needed to on offense. He finished with 26 points on 8-of-18 shooting with three rebounds, five assists and two turnovers.

Booker was a game-low -18 after he entered the game with the worst plus/minus on the team, a troubling trend. Do not think about this as it applies to Booker. Think about how it applies to the Suns, in that they are playing at their lowest level when their best player is playing.

The starting lineup remained the same with Khaman Maluach getting the nod. It entered the night sporting a -35 in 47 minutes with 19 assists and 15 turnovers while shooting 5-of-27 (18.5%) from 3.

The most broken element of those four previous games is that the Suns had a -21.2 net rating in Booker’s 139 minutes, while it leapt and leapt to a 15.7 net rating in the 53 minutes he sat. That is solely because of the defense, with the defensive rating dropping from 137.2 to 91.7 when Booker sits. No matter how you feel about Booker or his defense, that is the type of nuclear spread spotlighting a balance of worrisome team-wide issues and small sample size inaccuracies. Even if those numbers improve substantially, it would be truly insane if the Suns were even 10 points per 100 possessions better on defense when Booker was off the floor, so we’ve got a ways to go before acting like it will be this bad all year.

On Monday, the starting lineup was even in 11 minutes of play. Maluach only played 13, with the rest of the minutes getting filled by Oso Ighodaro (who closed) and Ryan Dunn as a small-ball 5.

Whatever is causing the team play to be so poor when Booker is on the floor is the biggest fix required of the team through five games. It’s some combination of the team defense, balance on offense, limitations at center and Booker’s own play. Decide for yourself which slices of that pie chart should be the largest.

This was one of Jalen Green’s best outings as a Sun before his three turnovers in the final frame. Yes, even on 5-of-14 shooting for 11 points.

Green has had plenty of explosive scoring outings but his all-around contributions in this game were as good as they have ever been. Green’s process four games in was improved, even though the results weren’t there. On Monday, it all flowed together much better, with his constant rim pressure yielding eight assists and four turnovers and his energetic activity producing a team-high eight rebounds with two steals and two blocks. The eight assists were his most as a Sun. Eight rebounds tied his most as a Sun. He had ten total blocks as a Sun coming into the game.

Despite the majority of the outside chatter around the starting lineup directing Green to the bench, the Suns would be unwise to move him out of the starting lineup if he continues to play like this, a.k.a. doing exactly what he is being asked to do. They’ve invested too much time into him to bail once things appear to be at long last clicking for him as an accentuating two-way player.

Will the Suns choose to keep living with Green’s growing pains, like those giveaways in the fourth quarter? Or is he going to be sold on maintaining his growth off the bench?

Miles Bridges shot 7-of-14 for 21 points with six rebounds, three assists, one turnover, four steals and a block in his most well-balanced game of the year. Brooks added 18 points (5-of-8) with eight rebounds, four assists and four turnovers.

Jordan Goodwin injured his right calf at some point in the first half and did not return in the second half. Only getting 10 minutes from him and an off-night from Collin Gillespie (1-of-8 with two assists and no turnovers) really pushed the Suns’ depth to its limits.

Draymond Green was ejected in the early third quarter after getting two separate technical fouls. The first came when he tossed Maluach to the ground and the second came via double-techs assessed to him and Brooks. Brooks did nothing but try to be a peacemaker and did not escalate the situation, unlike Green, so he’s got a strong argument for that T to be rescinded like the handful of them that were taken back by the league last season.

Curry provided 34 points, six rebounds, seven assists, three turnovers and a steal. Still pretty good.

Related

Draymond Green ejected after getting into it with Dillon Brooks during Suns-WarriorsJordan Goodwin exits game at Golden State Warriors with right calf injurySuns find ‘building block’ in loss to NuggetsDillon Brooks ejected for appearing to kick Jamal Murray below the beltOso Ighodaro upgraded to available, Denver’s Cam Johnson available for return to PhoenixLuke Kennard: Suns’ point guard play ‘will be fine’