Suns face test of defensive-minded Clippers in season opener

PHOENIX — As a way to preview the Phoenix Suns’ opening night on Wednesday and continue our look at how bonkers-loaded the Western Conference is, the Los Angeles Clippers have the highest odds of anyone to drop out of the playoffs completely. While it’s a solid roster not worth overlooking, L.A. is incredibly top heavy, a rickety balancing act thanks to the uncertainty that constantly surrounds Kawhi Leonard and James Harden. Leonard is already out indefinitely.

And to bounce off how Phoenix looks as a smaller team by design, the Clippers share those traits as well. Who guards whom and rebounding worries do not headline this matchup, which is when we should see the Suns at their best in the short term.

Harden, of course, is taking up at least the top-half of the scouting report’s first page. The reliance on him during Leonard’s absence will be extreme.

“There’s so many things. … I usually always start with keeping him off the free-throw line,” Suns head coach Mike Budenholzer said of the challenges of game-planning against Harden. “It’s easy to say, it’s really hard to do. You have to be disciplined, you have to try and understand some of his tricks and not fall for them and it takes a great discipline. He’s a great passer too. Everybody talks about the scoring, which is real, but the passing is really elite and he can get going from the 3-point line. There’s a lot of reasons why he’s one of our great players.”

If Phoenix contains Harden’s playmaking, it is in for a good night. Look for Devin Booker or Bradley Beal to take on the defensive assignment, with Beal as the favorite. That’s the No. 1 key because the on-ball equity beyond Harden is slim.

If Suns fans do not appreciate what their front office pulled off this summer despite all the handcuffs placed on the majority of NBA teams, they should look around at some other situations close by. Paul George left for Philadelphia after the Clippers’ woeful offers to re-sign him were attributed to concerns of the second tax apron, they finagled what they could out of the roster-moving limitations by prioritizing athleticism and defense.

L.A. signed Derrick Jones Jr. and completed a sign-and-trade for Kris Dunn, two players with different yet similarly unrealized potential from a half-decade ago that came to fruition last season long after their initial situations didn’t work out.

Jones, a former Sun, was a promising freak athlete out of UNLV that got a training camp deal after going undrafted in 2016. He hovered around on the roster, showing a nose for the ball while his defensive acumen and 3-point shot developed before mostly getting featured at the G League level in northern Arizona. After productive stops in Miami, Portland and Chicago that all featured him in a legitimate reserve role, Dallas signed him on the minimum entering last year and got one of the steals of the offseason, finding a legit 3-and-D wing that wound up starting on a Finals team.

Dunn was a part of that same draft class in 2016, but unlike Jones, got picked. And a whole lot higher. The No. 5 selection by the Minnesota Timberwolves had a wiry combination of extreme burst and strength that made it hard not to at least think about Russell Westbrook when watching him. Dunn, though, never found consistency in his offensive game to let his defense shine, mostly going through that process in Chicago after being a part of the Jimmy Butler trade.

In late 2021 after not making a roster, Dunn went the G League route like Jones. He signed one 10-day in March 2022 that didn’t work out before another with Utah in Feb. 2023 that very much did. He knocked down enough 3s on low volume to hang on the floor for his still-great defense and now arrives on a Clippers team that will rely on him off the bench.

But that’s it for the Clippers in terms of any other notable names coming in. They will be relying a whole lot on Norman Powell for supplementary scoring alongside Harden and Leonard. Perhaps there is more in the cards for Terance Mann, or an expended role for the always-solid Ivica Zubac. That, however, is what your brain has to do to figure out how this works offensively whenever either one or both of those stars are hurt. They didn’t even get past opening night before starting that thought exercise.

With all that said, the Clippers do pose a challenge because most of those guys play solid-to-great defense on the perimeter and Zubac is no slouch in ball screen coverage as well. This is the type of squad that will pounce on Phoenix if it finds lethargic offensive flow.

“They have a lot of defensive-minded players on their team. … I think they guard very well, I think they’re versatile on the defensive end and they have a lot of people that take pride in it,” Booker said of the Clippers.

Grayson Allen is probable after playing in only the preseason opener due to a sore Achilles while Damion Lee is probable as well. Lee worked his way back from a year off following a rare knee surgery and picked up a hamstring issue in training camp. Josh Okogie (hamstring) is out.

In a note to regular readers, this season you can catch me and Mitch Vareldzis on Arizona Sports’ pregame and postgame shows for Suns contests this season. Tune in on arizonasports.com, the Arizona Sports app and on 98.7 FM. Weekly Empire of the Suns podcast episodes and the normal writing you’re used to aren’t going anywhere, either. Going to be a fun year!

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