Phoenix Suns have rare home practice, get Aaron Holiday more acclimated

PHOENIX — It had been a while since the Phoenix Suns got to practice in their own building. Over two weeks to be exact until Monday’s session broke that streak.

With the tenuous nature of an NBA schedule and the never-before-seen demands of the pandemic-affected timeline the last two seasons, more often than not, head coach Monty Williams has elected for days off rather than a practice.

Now, that hardly means this group is spending a day out of the gym, as they are a “work team” who will get their stuff done on those days. But it’s still not practice, and Williams spoke on Monday with a tone that seemed like it was overdue.

“We had a good practice,” he said. “Went over a lot of stuff. A lot of things you have to tighten the screws on a number of your parts of your program this year. Things just naturally slip a bit. As soon as you tell the guys, they know what you’re talking about.

“It was one of those days where we did a lot of review, tons of shots, got up and down a bit. No contact but we were able to get a lot of stuff done.”

When asked if this point in the schedule with two days between games instead of one was a relief to get that type of work in, Williams with his great sense of humor provided a “I don’t think I ever feel relief” quip before saying it was really nice to get Monday.

“When you get two days off, man, you want to take advantage of it,” Williams said.

With a 46-10 record, the Suns are in a position where they’ve needed less of those days than other teams. Sure, they’ve got veterans who need rest too, but they’ve also got veterans with knowledge and know-how.

Last year, it became noticeable how good Phoenix was at integrating gameday adjustments for a specific opponent during its shootaround that morning of a game. That is a difficult thing to do the Suns have become great at.

Here’s what Williams said when asked if that luxury helps with not practicing as much.

“I think so. I think it helps having as many veterans as we have,” he said. “Last year we had a bunch and now we have even more. Those guys understand that when we do step on the floor and we have a shootaround or we walk through stuff, it’s really important. It’s not something you just goof around with and move on to the next thing.

“I think the veterans we have understand that we’re not going to get after it 5-on-5 or break a big-time sweat, but we can get a mental workout that can help us and try to take advantage of the lack of practice time.”

The practice was also beneficial for new guard Aaron Holiday as well. Holiday arrived at the trade deadline on Thursday and made his debut in Saturday’s win over the Orlando Magic, playing well in nine garbage-time minutes and scoring 10 points.

Williams said he thought about giving Holiday a go in the standard rotation but also didn’t want to put too much on his plate too quickly. The other trade deadline acquisition, Torrey Craig, obviously had a head start on getting to know the system since he was on the team last year.

But Monday’s practice was huge for Holiday, because practice sometimes doesn’t mean as much for depth pieces that watch the first and second units get the lion’s share of the work in. And Holiday got to be in that second unit since Cam Payne (right wrist sprain) and Landry Shamet (right ankle sprain) still aren’t participating.

Williams sees Holiday as someone who could play for them, not initially shoving him to the side as an end of the bench player.

“He was out there with the second group a ton today,” Williams said. “We don’t know what the rotation is going to be going forward but the way he defends, the way he scores the ball and his confidence level, I wouldn’t look at him as a third level guy at all.

“He very well could be in the rotation. … The more ball-handlers you can have on the floor, the more toughness you can have on the floor, the better.”

Williams said on Saturday that Holiday’s first outing was impressive.

“It was just one game but looking at his body of work since he got in the league, he’s a guy that can guard the ball, he can move his feet but he’s not afraid to shoot, he’s not afraid to score. … I didn’t see him out there thinking,” Williams said. “That was the cool thing. Sometimes when you step out there and you don’t know what’s going on, thinking kind of slows you down.

“The guys on the sideline were talking to him, trying to help him out, but he just played. That was a really good sign.”

Williams particularly noted those attributes he rattled off, as well as a successful lob pass tossed to Bismack Biyombo that Biyombo wasn’t able to finish.

That type of pass in the Suns’ system of diving bigs is one ball-handlers need to have down and Holiday’s got it.

Mikal Bridges is familiar with Holiday.

They were in the same draft class and Bridges one time ran into Holiday on a youth league circuit. Bridges, a kid from Philly who loved watching Holiday’s brother Jrue on the 76ers at the time, did a triple take at the kid next to him that looked just like Jrue before being told that it was Aaron, Jrue’s younger brother.

Here is Mikal Bridges telling the funny story pic.twitter.com/5HkDVQpNwA

— Kellan Olson (@KellanOlson) February 14, 2022

“I know how he plays,” Bridges said of Aaron Holiday. “Fits our team perfectly. I know the teams he’s been on and I think this is a great spot for him. He guards. He’s a Holiday, so he guards. Shoots, does everything.”

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