The overarching theme of the Phoenix Suns’ season the last two months is how much they look like they are playing against an opponent at their level when they face teams on the outside of the postseason picture, a.k.a. some of the worst teams in the NBA.
Therefore, that is who they are. With a complete lack of signature wins against other teams and hardly any blowout victories in general, how else are we supposed to interpret that?
Sunday’s iteration was a 127-109 loss to the 18-39 Toronto Raptors who were missing their big-time trade deadline acquisition Brandon Ingram (left ankle sprain) and starting center Jakob Poeltl (right hip pointer).
In the unenviable task of evaluating this team for the rest of the season, Toronto offered a perfect test for the Suns in seeing if they could properly beat a team that has the type of roster that typically makes Phoenix (27-30) beat itself.
The Raptors are loaded with athleticism and length across every position. Jamal Shead is the same size as Tyus Jones but is twice as explosive as him in every department, while it is lottery pick after lottery pick around the perimeter. That type of makeup wreaks havoc against the Suns on the glass, in transition and with forcing turnovers.
Toronto is a very bad offensive and shooting team but also has four guys that can go off for 25-plus any night in R.J. Barrett, Scottie Barnes, Gradey Dick and Immanuel Quickley. Phoenix has a tendency to let inferior opponents get comfortable and on paper that’s too much skill to allow to reach that state.
Since mid-January, the Raptors came into the day 9-8, sitting 24th in offense and eighth in defense. There aren’t really team numbers that pop inside the weeds, so again, just don’t hurt yourself.
But what is perhaps the biggest weakness of this Suns team is how little they set the tone. That has crippled them for three straight contests coming out of the All-Star break, posting 21, 20 and now 26 points in the first quarter. They have no identity, so what are they even trying to establish coming out of the gates anyway? You can win a lot in the NBA by imposing your will. Phoenix loses a lot by doing the opposite.
This game was dictated on the Raptors’ terms. That sentence should speak for itself.
Phoenix had a season-low two assists in the first quarter. That would suggest a terrible offensive quarter but the Suns still got to a mildly low 25 points and shot 46%, a nod to what Toronto was OK with taking away and also Phoenix missing open shots.
A day earlier, the Suns shot 76% in the second quarter to make up for a slow start. They were not able to do that on Sunday, and more importantly, Toronto kept rolling offensively. Phoenix’s abhorrent transition defense maintained that standard, as did its lazy closeouts to blah shooters. The Suns can roll their eyes at a 10-for-18 (55.5%) half of 3s for a poor shooting team but they did absolutely nothing to impede that. Remember this for later!
Toronto’s strategy to tunnel the Suns in certain areas of the floor offensively resulted in allowing just 13 attempts from 3 in the first half, two of which went in. What was far worse was the Suns going -6 in free-throw attempts against the defense with the worst opposing free-throw rate in the NBA, and Phoenix has the third-best for its own offense. If you needed the numbers to tell you who the aggressor was too instead of the tape, there you go.
The Raptors operated like a team that knew it would win in the margins and math enough to come out with a victory. They were rewarded with a 15-point advantage at halftime.
Phoenix made five straight shots in the early third quarter to cut it to 10, a byproduct of Toronto missing shots while generating just as good of opportunities as it did in the first half. That trend continued until a dual-contest at the rim by Nick Richards and Kevin Durant at the rim got Devin Booker a run-out 3 to get within four that finally resulted in the Suns finding some intensity on defense.
But in a consistent theme this year, Phoenix cannot simply decide to increase its effort and see that correct all the other problems. Terrible rebounding and turnovers quickly resulted in the Raptors getting back up 11 later in the quarter.
It was 88-82 Raptors entering the third quarter after a 4:35 close to the quarter that was 7-5 Toronto. Yet another mid-off was in the cards.
Toronto got back ahead by 11 after Quickley found some success hunting Grayson Allen or Jones, an element of Phoenix’s defensive scheme in which it does not fight nearly enough to avoid giving away that switch for free. Suns turnovers kept coming and that let Toronto run against the aforementioned woeful effort to get back.
Phoenix then ripped off a 10-0 run in just over two minutes, one that was affected by Toronto’s insistence for running terrible offense, before Toronto buried five straight 3s in an avalanche to jump up 17 with under two minutes to go. All of that was sparked by Quickley, who was in a zone the Suns rolled out a red carpet toward earlier in the game.
The Raptors finished 20-for-35 (57.1%) from deep. Once again, the Suns have no one to blame but themselves. They let the Raptors grow their confidence in the first half and the shooting luck regressed significantly in the third quarter when all they could muster to counter was those five points for nearly five minutes.
Or how about making up for it on the other end? They only attempted 28 and made seven (25%). Clearly, head coach Mike Budenholzer’s offensive principles haven’t stuck. You decide who deserves more of the blame for that (when it was a problem last year too).
Booker had 31 points and eight assists with one turnover in 37 minutes while Bradley Beal was excellent with 12-of-15 shooting for 30 points. Durant was 5-of-15 for 15 points with four rebounds, four assists, three steals, three blocks and two turnovers. Booker reached 37 minutes, Durant clocked in at 40 and Beal sat at 41 after all three played 38 the night prior. That is going to catch up to the Suns very, very soon if they keep this up.
A more understated Suns weakness for the second straight year has been the lack of variety when it comes to how they get Durant the ball. The mid-post isolations are effective and also a turnover machine, so against a team like Toronto that can deny those rather easily or force risky passes, Durant wasn’t going to get as many of those looks. That required him to find shots in other ways, and since Phoenix doesn’t use much half-court motion to get Durant the ball on the move off the catch, you get performances of his like Sunday’s.
If you want to play the blame game here, which is honestly just a shrug for something like this, consider how this is a different coaching staff and offense than last year with the problem still persisting.
For something worth noting, Beal thrived after clearly tweaking something in his left foot during Saturday’s win. Beal called for immediate sub, a signal he was done for the day, only to return shortly later. That left foot is where he sprained his big toe, an injury that sidelined him for four games.
Phoenix ended up -8 in free-throw attempts, a truly mind-boggling result given Toronto’s extreme deficiencies on both sides of that exchange and how the Suns are one of the best at generating them.
The Suns are now just 13-9 when shooting 50% or better after checking in at 50.6% on Sunday, another signal to how much they get burned by being a terrible defensive team that does poorly in the math areas as well.
Toronto had four players score at least 20 points, including 23 in 20 minutes from backup 5 Chris Boucher, the latest pedestrian center to ravage the Suns. Richards and Mason Plumlee did not have good nights after having their best joint effort on Saturday.
Ryan Dunn briefly appeared in the Suns rotation as the outcries from the fanbase for more of him on the floor continued. He played just seven minutes.
