Injured Suns stars Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal could return next week vs. Lakers

PHOENIX — Injured stars Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal could be back on the court the next time the Phoenix Suns suit up, head coach Mike Budenholzer told reporters on Friday.

“We’ll see how they feel coming out of today,” Budenholzer said. “The hope, the plan is they’ll play some five-on-five on Sunday and continue to make that progression and hopefully be available for Tuesday night against the Lakers.”

Budenholzer said Durant and Beal, both of whom are returning from left calf strains, had a “good day on the court” in some three-on-three action and other conditioning work on Friday.

While the damage of the injuries has already been done with a 1-6 record since Durant’s last game and five straight losses since Beal’s last game, their respective progressions are coming at an opportune moment, which features the rare five off-days between regular season games.

It’s a new quirk to the NBA calendar, as the Emirates NBA Cup schedule adds a sort of “bye week” equivalent. Phoenix has already played two NBA Cup games (1-1), whereas many of the teams in action on Friday have only played one.

“Get a little bit sharper, we can have, like, a mini-training camp. We could take an hour of time and focus on watching film, walking through some stuff, adding some new things, sharpening up on a few plays,” Grayson Allen said of what he wanted to accomplish over the stretch. “It’s pretty rare to get this amount of time. We could do a lot of teaching … with not having to scout for another team.”

Budenholzer rang a similar tone, emphasizing situational execution.

“Growing how we get into things but then the execution when we’re in them. The decision-making and execution out of situations that come up in every NBA game and guys making reads and decisions, being aggressive in certain situations that we’re just seeing kind of repeatedly,” Budenholzer said. “It’s good to talk about it, kind of drill it, work on it, then we’ll be prepared for the game.”

Allen joked the five days sounded nice on paper, but he knew the team would have to pay for it elsewhere with an extra back-to-back or an extra three-games-in-four-days stretch.

Phoenix may have already paid the price with 12 games over a three-week stretch starting on Oct. 31, which did not include any consecutive days off.

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