PHOENIX SUNS

Suns stay in relative control to handle depleted Jazz

Jan 11, 2025, 6:52 PM

Suns...

Ryan Dunn #0 of the Phoenix Suns goes for the slam dunk during the first half of the NBA game against the Utah Jazz at Footprint Center on January 11, 2025 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Kelsey Grant/Getty Images)

(Photo by Kelsey Grant/Getty Images)

PHOENIX — To continue where we left you for the Phoenix Suns’ win over the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday feeling like a test they passed from the basketball gods to remain consistent, Saturday was another offer — a chance at a blowout win.

This one they failed.

With the 9-27 Utah Jazz down several key players, the matinee contest could allow Phoenix only its second win of the season by over a dozen points. While it was a Suns win they controlled and never trailed in, a 114-106 final, it was not as convincing as you’d want.

Head coach Mike Budenholzer called this a “good win” while also noting the Suns had a few chances to really open this one up, a good summation that Devin Booker co-signed with another game coming the following evening.

Phoenix was up as many 16 in the first half before Utah cut the lead to one midway through the third quarter. The Suns expanded it back to double digits and were up eight entering the final frame. They came into it off back-to-back missed corner 3s and opened it with a turnover leading to a transition layup. Kevin Durant then missed a, for him, gimme one-legged leaner in the paint and a Utah offensive rebound on a miss led to one point at the foul line to get the Jazz back within five.

That was with 10:49 to go, so any hope of keeping this game unattainable for the Jazz in the last few minutes would have to be built immediately.

Two minutes later, the Jazz cut it to three.

Back-to-back turnovers by Utah reserve guard Svi Mykhailiuk, the frontrunner for Tank Commander of the Year, let Phoenix breathe a bit and extend the lead to nine before Utah’s starters got back in the game (after a very lengthy rest!).

Grayson Allen knocked down two straight 3s, following his last two attempts going in-and-out, and then a Booker dunk brought the lead back to 14 with just under five minutes to go.

Utah never made things awkward, unlike Atlanta’s desperate surge on Thursday, but did get within nine at 1:59 remaining to keep the Suns’ key players on the court.

The miss on a blowout was not for a lack of trying. The effort was there. Guys like Booker and Durant were moving with purpose around the floor. But that doesn’t stop the costly turnovers, rebounding issues or poor defensive breakdowns either on or off the ball that lead to wide-open shots from 3 or at the rim.

And that’s why all of this is so immensely difficult to do midway through the season. Those issues will not go away at least until Phoenix is able to find its footing under a run of wins. From there, that’s when the Suns can really start improving and eliminating the problematic areas of their play that prevent them from being a good basketball team.

Will they ever get there? No clue. Saturday marking the team’s first winning streak in a month is admittedly a (tiny) step closer.

Utah has been terrible all year. It began the season with a six-game losing streak, the first of five lasting at least three games, and it’s now six such streaks after Saturday. The Jazz came into the afternoon 20th in offense and 27th in defense, with only two real outliers in their statistical profile for the Suns to worry about. They rank third in both offensive rebounding rate and free-throw rate, two problems for Phoenix, with the latter more on its inability to prevent players from driving inside.

The Suns did a good job avoiding fouls (13-for-19 free throws for the Jazz) while the offensive glass remained a weak point. Utah grabbed an absurd 21 for 19 second-chance points. To its credit, Phoenix put in its own work to at least offset that some with 12 for 11 points.

Booker began the game a perfect 7-for-7 form the field and 4-of-4 on his 3s for 22 of his 34 points. Durant added 25 on 11-of-19 shooting. The duo combined for 11 assists and eight turnovers.

While the box score wasn’t jumping off the page for Bradley Beal and Allen like it did on Thursday, they were good in this one again. One of the strengths of this new-look group is having the energy, scoring and shooting pop off the bench from that duo.

The Jazz were surprisingly plucky for back-to-back seasons before their clear goal of rebuilding is reaching its objective much easier this year, with injuries really weighing them down.

2023 No. 9 overall pick and starting forward Taylor Hendricks only played nine games before a season-ending fractured fibula, veteran microwave scorer Jordan Clarkson (left plantar fasciitis) is on his fifth separate stint out injured, big man John Collins has missed nine of the last 10 games due to a nagging left hip and “keep your eye on him” young guard Keyonte George (left heel inflammation) has been out eight of the last 11.

Even someone like Brice Sensabaugh (return to competition conditioning), a late first-round pick in 2023 that averages 17.5 minutes per game, was a big loss for them since Sensabaugh in his last two games had put up a combined 61 points.

Star man Lauri Markkanen is somewhat back to looking like himself after an odd first two months of the year when he lacked aggression while presumably playing through injury. His points per game over his first 20 games sat at 18.6 on 12.8 shots per game, and now entering Saturday, he was at 22.8 PPG and 18.5 FGA/G (40%).

To further emphasize why the Suns should have blown this team out, at one point Utah played a five of Elijah Harkless, Micah Potter, Patty Mills, Drew Eubanks and Mykhailiuk. Harkless was making his NBA debut and Potter has 131 career points while Mykhailiuk, Mills and Eubanks are three guys with legit NBA experience trying to figure out a way to get beyond the end of the bench. Colin Sexton was Utah’s best player and he only played 29 minutes, with Markkanen at 31. We see you, Utah.

The Jazz were 9-of-42 (21.4%) from 3-point range. Take away some truly ludicrous Mykhailiuk stretches and have a few of those 3s off second chances go in and this one would have gotten interesting.

Jusuf Nurkic did not take his warmups off for the second straight game. This provided us a pretty clear-cut answer on if the center rotation could change depending on the matchup given Utah’s elite numbers on the offensive glass. While it was only for two minutes in the first half, Phoenix even went without a center on the floor against a Jazz lineup featuring three center-sized bodies.

Still no Royce O’Neale for Phoenix yet in this one. He’s past his 10-day re-evaluation timeline for a left ankle sprain and was listed as doubtful coming in. That doesn’t bode particularly well for Sunday’s matchup with the Charlotte Hornets. His next chance after that would be on Tuesday in Atlanta.

Suns closer in 3-point math battle vs. Jazz

Phoenix shot 13-of-37 (35.1%) from deep. Allen and Booker combined for 22 of those 37 those looks.

This was the 13th straight game the Suns have failed to crack 40 3-point attempts, the longest active streak in the NBA and the seventh longest this year, per Stathead. On the question of balancing a goal of reaching that type of numbers while still being OK with “quality over quantity” sometimes, here’s what Booker had to say.

“That’s a great question,” Booker said, later saying a good target is 35-40 attempts. “I still push for more 3s and I think just the overall tempo of the game, just playing faster. Obviously, that starts with getting a stop and securing the ball but I feel like we’re at our best when we get a rebound and we kick it ahead. And that’s how you find individual coverages. You don’t let the defense set up and guard us.

“We say play random, play fast, but it’s a controlled random that at times we’re really good with and at times we slow down a bit.”

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