The Phoenix Suns are what they are now, a team disinterested in defensive effort and more interested in just seeing where their offense can take them on any given night. It took them to a narrow 120-110 win over a depleted Chicago Bulls team on Sunday.
Matas Buzelis (illness), Josh Giddey (left hamstring injury management), Anfernee Simons (left wrist fracture), Zach Collins (right toe surgery), Nick Richards (right toe sprain) and Noa Essengue (left shoulder surgery) were out for Chicago.
You figure the Suns would have been more on their toes for this one after the March 5 loss to the Bulls under similar circumstances but instead this was a similar looking affair. Again, that type of thinking can now go out the window with this group.
Phoenix (43-35) slogged through bunches of defensive mistakes, whether it was terrible transition defense or inept on-ball defense, to let Chicago hang around the entirety of this game.
The Suns came out of halftime up seven and whatever was said in the locker room picked up the energy, with better overall team defense earning noticeable levels of encouragement from the bench. Phoenix used two different spurts over a few minutes of that third quarter to extend its lead to 13, before three putrid possessions of transition defense immediately followed.
The momentum of that off switch contributed to an 11-0 Bulls run to get within two.
Chicago (29-49) was down just three with under three minutes to go but didn’t have enough offensively this time around to make the Suns sweat it anymore. Devin Booker had to toss up a late-clock prayer that went in and put the Suns ahead by nine with 90 seconds to go.
That was surely enough, even for these guys lately, and that was indeed the case.
Phoenix moved Jordan Goodwin into the starting lineup, an overdue shakeup for the defensive makeup of the team the last two months. Goodwin still brings size issues, even as a great rebounder, but he’s the Suns’ best overall defender.
Head coach Jordan Ott has clearly illustrated through his choices with these five over the season that he feels he needs to maximize every bit he can get offensively, whereas the defense should have remained solid regardless. That is no longer the case. Goodwin will be left open and has to knock down shots. He hasn’t gone through many shooting slumps this year and entered Sunday shooting 37.3% from 3 in the 13 games he played since coming back from injury. That is on 3.9 attempts a night, and on the season overall, Goodwin is at 35.9% on 4.3 3PA/G.
It’s worth noting that even Goodwin of all people was messing up on defense. He allowed a blow-by in the first half and flagrant fouled a 3-point shooter in the second half. That is always a very bad sign, when the guy known for excelling in a certain part of the game can’t even avoid goofs there, either.
Mark Williams also took over for Oso Ighodaro as the starting center.
Suns’ play-in outlook
The Suns at 43-35 now have four games left in the season and the Los Angeles Clippers (39-38) entered the evening three games back in the loss column. That math bodes well for Phoenix.
To clinch the seventh seed, the Suns just have to win two more games, or just one if it is against the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday, since that would secure the divisional tiebreaker over the Clippers.
For the Portland Trail Blazers (40-38), the Suns will just require one lone victory since it already has the head-to-head tiebreaker.
In terms of “layups” like this meeting against a tanking squad, just one remains for Phoenix on Wednesday for the second game of a back-to-back against the Dallas Mavericks.
Any losses for L.A. or Portland, of course, will chop down that win requirement by one.
The Clippers have a tough one on Wednesday hosting an Oklahoma City squad still trying to lock in the No. 1 seed, while a showdown with Portland on Friday could prove to be critical. With that said, L.A. got Sacramento on Sunday before Dallas on Tuesday and the stuck-in-10th Golden State Warriors for the season finale. This is still not over yet.
Portland, however, is in Denver on Monday and San Antonio on Wednesday. It would take a few big-time surprises for the Blazers to move up to seventh.
Dillon Brooks got his 18th technical foul in this one, so he will be suspended for Tuesday’s home game against the Houston Rockets if it is not rescinded. It was one of the more nonchalant ones that at least has a decent chance of getting rescinded, given the pattern of Brooks having that happen for a few this season.
Jalen Green opened the game with three turnovers in four minutes and finished with six. His loose handle continues to be an issue, a clear scout from opposing coaching staffs telling their defenders the ball will be there to strip at. The second of his three giveaways that came as a result of that included Green standing there to wonder what Williams was doing instead of getting back in transition, leading to a breakaway dunk. That’s the type of stuff Ott has to start benching guys for, no matter who it is. Everyone is guilty of it, but Green in particular has been stacking those blunders up.
Green, to be clear, scored 18 of his 25 points in the first half. So he was helpful in that way.
Rasheer Fleming was out of a rotation that Ott shrunk to nine guys. Fleming’s development won’t be too affected by a lack of playing time in these last few weeks but it’s a poor decision to pass on his type of energy the Suns lack. While the rookie still has some strides to make as an on-ball defender, where his physical tools should catch up soon enough, what he does filling in the gaps off the ball on both ends with his athleticism and size has been one of the few positives of Phoenix’s funk since February.
You can trust veterans who know where to be all you want but if they aren’t engaged enough to actually go where they know to be then there’s not much of a difference. Alas, team dynamics and politics exist that we seemingly cannot grasp from our perspective on the outside.
