Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darealdennyboy/
The Phoenix Suns have fallen to third place in the Western Conference, losing their third straight game against the New Orleans Pelicans.
Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images
The 2022-2023 Phoenix Suns season has been a rollercoaster thus far; some nights, they look like the clear best team in the Western Conference. Other times they look God awful. Over the last three games have resembled the latter.
This past week has been difficult for the Suns as they lost 130-111 against the Dallas Mavericks on Monday, 125-98 against the Boston Celtics Wednesday, and 128-117 against the New Orleans Pelicans.
It is never a good sign to be on a losing streak, and the best margin of victory is 11 points. Yet here the Suns are, and superstar Devin Booker is listed as day-to-day with a hamstring injury that could get even worse.
Today the Suns will face off against the New Orleans Pelicans again, who just humiliated us and led to a heated exchange at the end of the game.
Veteran point guard Chris Paul of the Phoenix Suns and backup guard Cameron Payne both took exception to the late game scoring by Zion Williamson and Larry Nance Jr. This led to a war of words and “hold me backs” between the Suns and the Pelicans, ignited by Chris Paul and Pelicans guard Jose Alvarado.
As a basketball fan, I love this. As a Suns fan, I’m not too fond of it. I love rivalries in sports, and the first-round matchup between these two teams in last year’s postseason was wildly entertaining.
This is a soft team. Chris Paul and Cameron Payne have both scored in garbage time in the past, with Payne doing so in last year’s 110-80 win over the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the playoffs. It looks terrible to be whining and carrying on about unwritten rules which this team has broken in the past.
If the Suns were like, “okay fine, we’ll see you Sunday, keep that same energy,” I wouldn’t care less. However, this lack of toughness and grit is something that many people have pointed out over the past few seasons. So-called “unwritten rules” are silly, to begin with, as stats are stats, and that’s how guys get paid, but regardless not only did they lose to a team we expected to beat, but they also acted like losers on the way out.
Chris Paul should be the last person to criticize how another team acts, as a good chunk of his career was spent playing on the very arrogant Lob City Clippers. So, what Chris Paul thinks he’s better than that now? You’re playing against the great CP3, so you must show respect. Is that the thought process? This kind of stuff happens. It should not lead to benches clearing at the end of the game.
If the Suns want to be mad, they should be angry at themselves for doing whatever that is, for the past three games, because I know that is not winning basketball. Champions rise to the occasion, not stoop to their opponent’s level.
The headline about this game is the tempers flaring at the end, which takes away from the learning experience. This game should be: only send the opposing team to the free throw line 35 times in a game.
Once again, this game was after the Suns lost in two blowouts. The Suns shot just 13 free throws the entire game as opposed to the 35 New Orleans did. The defense should have been tighter, not softer.
In 2022, if your team takes 44 three-pointers and hits 22, you should win that game automatically. New Orleans shot 8/27, good enough for a whopping 29.6 percent.
The team stats are similar for the two; seven more rebounds for New Orleans with five more offensive rebounds is not great, but many other stats were identical. 30 Suns assists, compared to 27 by the Pelicans, an even 50 percent field goal percentage for Phoenix and 51.1 percent for the Pelicans, 3 Suns blocks to the Pelicans’ 1.
Some of the team stats for the game were absurd. For example, the Suns fouled the Pelicans 25 times while only being fouled 15. Phoenix had six steals to the Pelicans’ 10, which does not seem like a lot, but those are four extra possessions. The Suns had 16 turnovers to the Pelicans’ 11. The real outlier was the points in the paint.
The Pelicans were able to get to the rim with quick guards and take advantage of the sluggish Phoenix front court, something that Steph Curry on the Warriors did earlier this season (despite his team losing). The Pelicans realized that Phoenix would not let them get a bunch of open perimeter looks, so they went old school and scored in the paint, getting 72 points. Zion Williamson is an excellent power forward but only scored 35 points, which isn’t anything but certainly is not 72, either. Jonas Valanciunas, the starting center for the Pelicans, only scored 12 points.
It is a guard-centric league. Now teams will take advantage of the Suns’ inability to catch up to their guards, and they’ll settle for the layups and “and 1” opportunities.
What is also concerning is the Suns’ having 16 turnovers against New Orleans. This was just days after having 18 against Boston and a relatively modest 11 against Dallas, which is below the Suns’ average of 13.8 per game, which seems way worse than it is, as that’s the 26th lowest in the league. New Orleans and Boston are two teams you cannot afford to give extra possessions to; they’re two solid offenses with many scoring options. Dallas, you can live with, as they live and die with Luka; their role players can get hot, but those usually coin-flip games end in Luka overcoming lackluster coaching and cold role players.
The Suns are splendid, and the talent is there, but sometimes they cannot get out of their way. Deandre Ayton has been playing well lately, and it’s overshadowed by lopsided loss after loss; with Devin Booker missing a minor amount of time, this can snowball into a more significant problem. The Suns’ interior defense outside of Ayton has not been sensational all year long, and Booker is good for 27.4 points a game, which is a lot of skill to lose during a slump.
The Western Conference is too deep and too close; every win will matter in March or December, the wins count the same, and as I have been saying all year long, this team is very beatable. It will take a lot of work to win four best of 7 series in the spring. As for solutions, consider signing Dwight Howard as a backup rim protector. The Suns have limited roster moves until the Jae Crowder situation is figured out, so I expect more of this wild rollercoaster for the rest of the season.
