Vinny’s View: Health will define the Suns’ success or failure after this All-Star break
For the Phoenix Suns to be a top-six seed in the Western Conference, one factor supersedes all the others. Health.
Watch: Vinny's View: The Phoenix Suns at the All-Star break | 1 min
No Booker. No Green. No defense. No chance.
That was the basic plot of the Phoenix Suns’ 136-109 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder at Mortgage Matchup Center on Wednesday.
Devin Booker and Jalen Green, who both played the night before in the win over Dallas, couldn’t go in the second game of the back-to-back. And the Suns who did take the court didn’t exactly offer much resistance on the defensive end to the defending champs.
Through three quarters, the Thunder shot 65.6% from the floor, basically doing whatever they wanted, even without reigning league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who didn’t play because of an abdominal strain.
Less on the game, more on the Suns at the break. They’re 32-23 and in seventh in the Western Conference. They’re 2-4 in February and 4-5 in a pivotal stretch of 16 out of 19 games being at home. Analytics indicate there’s been a big drop-off in offensive and defensive efficiency — and rebounding.
Throw all that out. For the Suns to be a top-six seed in the Western Conference, one factor supersedes all the others. Health.
Through 55 games, the Suns have had full rotational health in a small handful of contests. Jalen Green’s epic struggle with hamstring injury recovery has been a season-long storyline, as has the on-again/off-again health of Grayson Allen.
With all the deficiencies the Phoenix roster has from a construction standpoint, availability truly becomes the best ability post-All-Star break. Without it, the Suns’ season will likely devolve into a nice story about a team that was just good enough to qualify for the play-in.
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Comments
7 Comments
"No Booker. No Green. No defense. No chance."
The level of ignorance by these writers and the disrespect shown Grayson Allen really needs to stop.
These lead-in sentences should read, "No Booker. No Allen. No defense. No chance.
Jalen Green has not contributed to the Suns success this season while Grayson Allen has stepped up tremendously.
Additionally, since Phoenix was missing all three and Koby Brea had been called-up to play, then play him! In his short stint on the court, Brea was two for two from three. This was an obvious throw-away game. Ott should have prioritized playing the three rookies, Bouyea, Goodwin, Coffey and Dunn.
I for one would have enjoyed watching the youngsters over Dillon Brooks jacking-up yet another game-high (19) shot attempts. Would have saved him from getting a needless technical.
Speaking of Dillon, watching a podcast with Doncic as the guest. Doncic gave Dillon a shout-out for how well he is playing. The topic was trash-talkers and Doncic said he enjoys playing against Dillon.
In my mind success has already happened. While we love to point out this teams deficiencies this team will at least make the play in, maybe not go far, but compared to the garbage we've watched the past 2 years I'll take.
My after the ASB wish is for Ott to get kicked out of a game defending his players.
The only time these writers give Allen any props, is when they do an article about trading him while his value is high.
i think when both Allen and Gillespie are on the court with Brooks he isn't quite so aggressive in taking shots.