PHOENIX — In a portion of the schedule the Phoenix Suns must take advantage of, they’re off to a fine enough start, winning 116-109 on Sunday over the Portland Trail Blazers.
Friday’s win against the Utah Jazz began a run of four straight games versus clubs below .500. After a five-game slate facing some of the better teams in the West that begins on Dec. 23, the Suns will play eight of their next nine games against Eastern Conference foes and a pair of contests with the 14-13 Atlanta Hawks represent the only ones that feature a group above .500. The lone fixture with a fellow squad in the West is 5-19 Utah.
From there, the road traveled gets a lot more tenuous. With the Suns just 14-11, they can’t afford to drop more than a slim few of these 13 games.
In an effort on Sunday that the Suns never really sustained solid play long enough for to blow it open, the third quarter woes reared their head immediately via an 11-0 Portland beginning to the period, fueled by two Jusuf Nurkic turnovers and a blocked shot attempt that could have counted for a third. Phoenix avoided letting the game get off the rails and got its lead back to four at the end of the quarter before an 18-6 start to the final frame pretty much wrapped things up. Nurkic was a part of that positive push back into control.
Good teams will play a dozen or so games like this against inferior opponents, allowing it to hang around before effortlessly swatting it back down to Earth toward the contest’s conclusion. It did not sit particularly well after how poorly the Suns played at the end of their road trip, and for the second straight time against Portland, they let them back in the game late.
Devin Booker put forth a solid 28 points on 7-of-14 shooting while the rare off night for Kevin Durant was here with 9-of-23 for 20 points. Booker’s looked like himself in back-to-back victories.
At the 25-game mark, the Suns certainly have the horses in their supporting cast to make a deep postseason run. Terrific production continues to flood in from the likes of Tyus Jones (19 points), Royce O’Neale (13) and others.
This has been a big-time scoring boom from that duo.
In Jones’ first six seasons, he scored 15-plus points in 15 total games, per Stathead. That rose to 10 in his seventh season alone before doing so 18 times each of the last two years. Now in Year 10, Jones has reached at least 15 points on 10 different occasions in just 25 games.
For O’Neale, it’s a similar rise. He hit 15-plus points across 16 games in his first five seasons before a spike of 17 in the last two years. He came up just short of 15 on Sunday but he’s at eight outings in just 25 games.
“They understand that teams are gonna load up on me, Kev and Brad and they’re making ’em pay for it,” Booker said of the two. “That’s what we worked on every day in practice. We talk about that spacing.”
Those two are shooting the absolute cover off the ball from deep recently. Over the last 10 games, O’Neale’s at 52.8% (37-for-70) and Jones sits at 54.5% (30-for-55).
Jones in particular is navigating the floor like someone who has really picked up on the rhythm of that space.
“With the gravity that KD, Book, (and) Brad create, everyone else is getting open looks,” Jones said. “So just being ready to fire ’em and knock ’em down.”
Suns’ Bradley Beal out with latest injury
Bradley Beal was out for his second straight game due to swelling in his right knee that popped up between Thursday night and Friday morning, prior to Friday’s victory. Head coach Mike Budeholzer said pregame on Sunday that the injury “kind of came out nowhere” but there is no structural damage and the Suns are hopeful with a few days off until Thursday that the swelling will reduce and Beal will be fine.
“He’s working. I’ve seen him do conditioning today, so you just gotta stay on it,” Booker said of Beal. “He’s a professional, he’s been in it a long time.”
After recently passing the quarter point of the regular season, Beal has now had seven different injuries pop up. He has played in 15 of the Suns’ 25 games.
Beal missed two games for his right elbow, five for a left calf issue, one for a left ankle sprain and now two for the right knee. That does not include a night against Sacramento when he was in serious pain after his left knee was rolled up on and an ankle injury he couldn’t even remember which he tweaked because of the pain in his knee, and he also sprained his right ankle on Dec. 5. Three games later, he was out because of the knee on that leg.
Last season it was his back, right ankle (twice), a nasal fracture, left hamstring and right finger.
At a certain point, this one being 18 months in with Beal, the Suns have to consider altering the way Beal is used to preserve him. He’s under contract for two more seasons beyond this year, and barring an unforeseen twisting of logic from an opposing front office, isn’t going anywhere. Whether that’s less minutes, less games or less practices, when does Phoenix change its thinking?
Budenholzer said those types of conversations with the training staff have not taken place yet. He noted how some of those injuries for Beal have been bad luck, and he is certainly right. But they keep happening. Most NBA players deal with a laundry list of ailments over the course of a season, so that part is not irregular, but Beal’s frequency and how often it forces him to sit out is.
It’s not a surefire solution. Just because Beal is on the court less doesn’t exactly equate to lowering the likelihood of injury. Trying something different, however, has to be circling in a few heads of the key decision-makers.
