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After Thursday’s 124-115 defeat against the Atlanta Hawks, the Phoenix Suns have finally joined the rest of the NBA in suffering their 10th loss of the season.
It was one of the rare occasions where the Suns simply got beat by a team that was playing better basketball. The Hawks knocked down 20 triples, Trae Young dropped 43 and Phoenix’s defense just wasn’t up to snuff.
And yet, compared to seasons past, forgive us for not panicking about the Suns finally putting up double digits in the “L” column:
The Suns are still an NBA juggernaut and legitimate title contenders, but a loss like that serves as a firm reminder they’re not invincible either. Bearing that in mind, this feels like a good opportunity to take a look at five key statistics to keep an eye on with this team as the 2021-22 campaign heats up.
There isn’t one specific stat that can fully capture the magic of the Crunch-Time Suns, so let’s dive into the numbers and paint the full picture.
In games involving crunch-time minutes (where the score is within five points with five minutes or less remaining in regulation or overtime), here’s how the Suns stack up, with their league rank in parentheses:
The Suns dominate every notable category in the clutch. Their 60 percent shooting in those situations is more than seven percentage points higher than the next-closest team, the LA Clippers (52.8 percent). Their Net Rating is more than double the next-closest team, the Washington Wizards (+22.2). They record the most assists with the fewest turnovers. They simply cannot be stopped if the game is close in the final frame.
“It’s fun, ’cause with a team like ours, it’s not just a one-person or two people,” Paul said. “We got a system. We play a certain way, we play off reads, and it could be anybody on any given night. So it’s so fun to know that it’s a unit. It’s all of us moving as one, and so when we’re in those situations, it’s not always gonna work out for us, but we know what we want to get to.”
Last year, the Suns were a respectable 25-12 in crunch-time games, good for the second-best record in the NBA, with a +0.8 point differential that ranked eighth. But they also squandered leads against inferior teams, and learned the value of late-game execution the hard way in the NBA Finals. This year represents a major step forward.
“I think after our experience and our playoff run last year that we pay attention to the details,” Booker said. “Every game we’re preparing for what the next level is, and that’s the postseason. So every play counts. We always say we’re not playing against our opponent, we’re playing against ourselves and holding each other accountable.”
Of course, being led by the NBA’s best backcourt sure doesn’t hurt in that respect either.
“I say it all the time, I don’t take for granted what those two are able to do in closing moments,” Monty Williams said.
Nor should he.
Let’s start with the Point God. At age 36, Paul has scored a whopping 60 points and is a league-best +83 overall in his 70 crunch-time minutes. He’s shot 18-for-32 in the clutch (56.3 percent), has made 22 of his 27 free throws and boasts 24 assists (second-most in the NBA) to only four turnovers.
Watching all 18 of CP3’s crunch-time buckets is basically basketball porn.
“That is a luxury,” Williams said. “Sometimes you use that word and it doesn’t really bring the same meaning, but it is a luxury to have the ball in his hands. He makes the right plays, and he’s not afraid to take those shots.”
Let’s not forget about Book though, either. While he’s missed four games involving clutch minutes, the Suns are still 16-3 in the ones he’s been available for. He’s racked up 56 points and is +58 overall in his 53 crunch-time minutes. He’s shot a blistering 20-for-30 from the field (66.6 percent), 7-for-13 from 3-point range (53.8 percent) and boasts six assists to just one turnover.
Booker’s clutch reel deserve some screen time too!
“They come double me, I’ll be like, ‘That’s Devin Booker over there,'” Paul joked. “So it’s a nice luxury to have, especially with our team and the way we play.”
Booker and Paul both agree it took an adjustment process to get on the same page and build that trust, but now the Suns are firing on all cylinders when it’s winning time. In terms of overall plus/minus in the clutch, Phoenix houses four of the top five players, and five of the top 10:
“A lot of it is Chris, a lot of it is Book’s ability to make plays, Cam [Johnson] and Mikal not being afraid to take and make shots,” Williams explained. “Our bigs put a lot of pressure on the rim, which generates a lot of shots. But overall, I think team execution has a lot to do with it.”
In many respects, what Paul is doing at age 36 is mind-boggling. He’s a legitimate MVP candidate for the NBA’s best team, is leading the league in assists and steals, and just earned the 12th All-Star selection of his 17-year career.
Unfortunately, as surgical as CP3 has been all season long, there’s one area of his game that simply hasn’t recovered from that bizarre shoulder stinger he suffered in the first round of last year’s playoffs: his 3-point shooting.
To be clear, there’s no reason to suspect Paul is playing through injury or that it’s a lingering issue. His dribbling has been just fine, and it’s worth noting that he made 49.1 percent of his 3s from that series onward during Phoenix’s Finals run.
But it is strange how this normally efficient area of Paul’s game still hasn’t clicked this season. The Point God went from making 39.5 percent of his triples last year to just 34 percent of them this season. He’s only making 37.5 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3s (down from 47 percent last year) and 33.3 percent of his pull-up 3s (down from 37.2 percent last year).
With the ball being in his hands so much, it makes sense he’s not getting a ton of catch-and-shoot looks or open corner 3s. Most of his shots will come off the dribble, and it’s not surprising The Bball Index rates his “openness rating” as an F, despite his 3-point shot creation skills earning an A grade.
Paul can create his own looks at any time despite his diminutive size, but there’s a big difference between getting off that patented elbow jumper and the strength it requires to hoist from long distance. For a guy who’s only open on 14.2 percent of his 3s, the Suns are hoping he’ll start knocking a few more of those down.
If he wasn’t so damn good, Devin Booker’s shooting percentages would be infuriating.
Not because he’s some inefficient, volume shooter or anything like that. But for years, the one thing holding Book back has been underwhelming returns from 3-point range. This year, despite shooting a career-best 37.3 percent from beyond the arc, his true-shooting percentage — a measure of efficiency that takes 2-pointers, 3-pointers and free throws into account — is the lowest it’s been since his second NBA season back in 2016-17.
The culprit? Aside from a slight shooting slump from beyond the arc over the last month, it’s Booker’s normally reliable midrange game that hasn’t quite been up to par.
This season, Booker is shooting 48 percent on his 2s, which is still respectable, but nowhere near the hyper-efficiency he’s had over the last three years at 54.3, 54.9 and 53.6 percent.
According to Cleaning the Glass, Book is taking a career-high 54 percent of his shots from the midrange, which ranks in the 100th percentile among all players at his position. Unfortunately, his efficiency from that area has dipped compared to last year:
The biggest drop appears to be on the “short mid,” which Cleaning the Glass classifies as shots between 4-14 feet away from the rim:
Contrary to popular belief, analytics emphasize taking a player’s most efficient shots. Shots at the rim and 3-pointers usually constitute a good portion of that, but with two of the NBA’s most lethal midrange maestros on their team, the Suns have zagged while the rest of the league zigs.
Monty Williams has repeatedly emphasized the importance of his guards’ ability to get to their spots and hit those shots — not only to punish bigs in drop coverage, but also to allow Phoenix to set its second-ranked defense.
“It goes against conventional wisdom in the NBA, but I think we’ve proven that you can have success with that shot,” Williams said. “And when you do get to the playoffs, sometimes you just gotta score. Scoring is a premium, so you can set your defense.”
With Booker’s efficiency at the rim also dropping from 63 percent to 59 percent, and his 3-point prowess dipping from 42.1 percent before the new year to 30.8 percent since the start of 2022, it’s almost comical that Booker is suddenly finding his “middy” again. Since the incident with the Toronto Raptors mascot, Book has made 51 percent of his midrange looks but only hit 30.3 percent of his 3s.
It’s as if the basketball gods refuse to allow this multi-faceted scorer to use all the tricks in his bag at once. In any case, Booker is still among the best in the league from the midrange. The Suns will just need him to be downright elite again when it matters most.
The Finals exposed the one major flaw of James Jones’ roster: a lack of center depth and size beyond Deandre Ayton. While Dario Saric had a great year as a small-ball 5, the second he went down in Game 1 of that series, Phoenix had zero frontcourt depth to rely on. Frank Kaminsky did his best when he got his chance, but the Suns had no answer for the unique mix of size, strength, length and agility that Giannis Antetokounmpo and the behemoth Milwaukee Bucks brought to the table.
In Games 1-2 (both Suns wins), Phoenix tied Milwaukee 26-26 in second-chance points. They lost 27-17 in offensive rebounds but were only a -7 on the boards overall. In Games 3-6 (all Bucks wins), the script completely flipped. The Suns got dismantled 65-28 in second-chance points, 52-25 in offensive rebounds and 185-148 in total rebounds over that span.
So Jones addressed his roster’s biggest flaws and then some. JaVale McGee, Bismack Biyombo and Jalen Smith are all options at the 5-spot behind DA, and that’s not even including the injured Saric and Kaminsky. However, Phoenix’s best bet to fill the small-ball 5 Torrey Craig role from last year is now either Ish Wainright or a severely undersized Jae Crowder. All of the more traditional 5s won’t see much action come playoff time, and the offensive rebounding numbers are alarming considering how many traditional bigs they’re currently feeding minutes.
So far this season, the Suns rank third in defensive rebounds per game, but considering they’re holding opponents to 44.1 percent shooting (the fourth-lowest mark in the league), it makes sense there’d be more rebounds available. Unfortunately, they rank 19th in opponent offensive rebounds (10.7 per game), 20th in opponent second-chance points (13.4 per game), and 17th in defensive rebounding percentage (72.7 percent).
Earlier in January, the Suns eked out a win against the Toronto Raptors despite giving up 22 offensive rebounds. Williams labeled it as a recurring problem area his team needed to correct moving forward.
“When you can come up with that rebound, you can get out in transition,” he said. “That’s the thing we’ve been talking to our guys about. We’re a darn good defensive team, but we’re holding our defense back by giving more possessions, opposing teams offensive rebounds. So it’s something we just have to make of high-level importance for our team.”
This may just be the price of this excellent but smaller starting 5, which slots Crowder at the 4 and backs him up with Cam Johnson. Against supersized lineups, Phoenix has options to match size with size, but a trade or two may need to be made in order to address their lack of a true small-ball option. This issue probably isn’t going anywhere.
Remember that Hawks loss we mentioned in the very beginning? Well, that brings us full-circle to the best way to beat the Phoenix Suns: Shoot the lights out of the gym from 3.
Overall, the Suns have held opponents to 33.7 percent shooting from long range, the fourth-best mark in the NBA. But the discrepancy between that percentage in their 41 wins versus their 10 losses is massive:
You’d expect there to be a gap in those two numbers, since any team is more likely to lose when its opponent shoots a higher percentage from 3. It’s called a “make or miss league” for a reason.
But that gap is more like a chasm, and Atlanta’s 20-for-41 shooting night provided the blueprint for beating the NBA’s second-best defense. Fortunately, “just make a shit-ton of 3s!” isn’t always replicable against this group, and Williams was right to point out hitting tough 3s off the dribble is even less so.
“The ones that Trae knocked down off the dribble, and there was a few more, you tip your hat to those guys,” Williams said. “That’s the toughest shot in basketball, and he just happens to be proficient in that particular shot. I’m more concerned with the times where we didn’t execute a coverage well, didn’t navigate a screen well. Those are the ones that we have to look at the film and try to correct.”
Given their track record, they’ll be able to do so. The Suns’ last two losses have come against teams riddled with shooters at almost every position, and although they were both one-sided, they were also nearly a month apart. It’s not necessarily an alarming statistic, but it is something to keep an eye on whenever Phoenix suffers a rare defeat.
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