Suns’ Dudley poised for second half turnaround
Feb 29, 2012, 5:01 AM | Updated: 5:13 am
Suns forward Jared Dudley is poised to rectify his team’s poor play on home court as well as in some critical facets of the game.
As he and his teammates approach the second half of the season, they’re focused on working tirelessly in practices to improve the areas of play in which they’ve lagged.
“It’s kind of hard to improve just playing games all the time,” Dudley told Arizona Sports 620’s Doug and Wolf Tuesday. “You’ve got to be able to throw some practice time in. Our mindset is I think we have eight out of our next 10, 11 games at home, we’re trying to win all those games at home and try to get back in the thick of this playoff race.”
Dudley acknowledged his team’s struggles with the pick-and-roll, as well as the point guard penetration to the lane. As a result, the Suns’ rebounding has been a constant problem.
“That’s one thing we worked on today, going over pick-and-roll coverages,” Dudley said. “If you can contain penetration against these good guards and good players in the NBA, it makes it a lot easier to rebound and for us to get out on the break-and-run and we’ve done a poor job of that at home.”
Despite the Suns’ disappointing play in the first half, the play of two-time MVP Steve Nash has been a continual bright spot for the team. It comes as no surprise to Dudley that teams including the Orlando Magic covet his services.
“Before I was even in the NBA, I wanted to play with Steve Nash,” Dudley enthused. “He’s leading the league in assists now. He led the league in assists last year. Unless you’re a point guard, you would be kind of stupid if you didn’t want to play with him. He makes everybody better.”
Dudley firmly believes that Phoenix will once again become an attractive landing spot for free agents, due to the organization’s highly-esteemed reputation, not to mention the incomparable weather. Still he knows the Suns have work ahead of them to be able to attract the top-tier talent necessary to take this team to the next level.
“We have to keep working and keep getting better each day, which we’re doing in the gym, and eventually get back to the playoffs and keep drafting good young talent and it will turn around very, very shortly,” Dudley said.
