Devin Booker shoulders the load once again with a team-high 21 points against the Golden State Warriors in the Phoenix Suns’ seventh straight loss. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
PHOENIX – As the NBA regular season winds down, the Phoenix Suns find themselves on the brink of elimination, facing an uphill battle to secure a spot in the Western Conference play-in tournament.
With three games left on the schedule, time is running low for the Suns to make a push into play-in position. As the No. 11 seed in the West, Phoenix (35-44) sits three games behind the No. 10 Mavericks (38-41). One more loss or a Dallas win would officially eliminate the Suns from postseason contention.
The Suns host the Oklahoma City Thunder, the top team in the West, Wednesday, while Luka Doncic returns to Dallas with the Los Angeles Lakers for an anticipated matchup against his former team.
The Suns made a strong push in March with six straight wins, but the run came to an end during a 30-point loss to the defending champions Boston Celtics at PHX Arena on March 26. Since then, the Suns have yet to find a win, losing their last seven including four 20-plus point losses after Tuesday’s 133-95 loss to the Golden State Warriors.
On March 30, in a 39-point loss to Houston, the Suns’ playoff hopes took a major hit. Midway through the second quarter, a scuffle broke out involving Houston’s Dillon Brooks, Kevin Durant and Nick Richards. Brooks received two technical fouls and was ejected from the game, while Durant and Richards picked up one apiece.
“Tonight was a bad night,” Suns coach Mike Budenholzer said after the loss to Houston. “There’s no other way to paint it. But I don’t think it’s what it’s been, to say categorically, every night. But tonight, we were not good. Urgency, anything you want to put on it, we were not good.”
Technical fouls were the least of the Suns’ worries during the loss. In the third quarter, Durant landed on Jabari Smith Jr.’s foot on an attack to the basket and rolled his ankle. Diagnosed with an ankle sprain, Durant reportedly will be out for at least a week.
Durant has impacted Phoenix in more ways than one, and his absence has been felt since he went down.
“Having him as a help-side defender is huge,” rookie center Oso Ighodaro said Tuesday. “Especially when he’s playing the three, it just gives us more length across the court. Offensively, his shot-making is one of one. The attention he gathers on defense, teams have to guard with multiple guys every single time, and that makes everyone’s lives easy.”
Rookie center Oso Ighodaro has embraced his role for the Phoenix Suns this season, most recently in the wake of Kevin Durant’s injury. (Photo by Jackson Shaw/Cronkite News)
Budenholzer is optimistic Durant will return to the lineup before the end of the season, but he stayed home during the recent road trip, and he remained on the sidelines during Tuesday’s defeat.
“Everybody has to step up, starting with myself,” Devin Booker said on the loss of Durant after the game in Houston. “The exact opposite of what went down tonight.”
Booker has done just that. He has poured in 38.7 points per game since the loss to Houston. But with the rest of the team contributing an average of just 69.3 points in the last three contests, Booker’s efforts haven’t been enough to get the Suns rolling again.
“I think he just reads the game really well,” Ighodaro said. “When teams are aggressive and blitzing him, he makes the right basketball play and gets the ball out of his hand every time.”
Phoenix’s struggles could be blamed on several different factors. Between injuries to stars like Durant and Bradley Beal to the team’s 12-28 road record, Budenholzer and the Suns haven’t found a consistent rhythm.
Veteran guard Grayson Allen, who played under Budenholzer in Milwaukee, says the leadership in Phoenix is not to blame for an underwhelming season.
“It’s easy to judge (coaches) based on a win/loss record, but I think there’s a lot more that goes into it than that,” Allen said. “From the locker room to film sessions … there’s a lot more that goes into it than just wins and losses.”
The future of the Suns’ roster remains uncertain, but with an average age of 28.4 and a disappointing season behind them, fans may be bracing for significant changes during the offseason – particularly if the team fails to secure a playoff spot.
“There’s a million reasons … It’s tough to just pinpoint one thing,” Allen said. “You could say injuries early, lack of continuity early, we couldn’t win games on the road. We have a pretty good home record and a terrible road record. You could talk about the defense, all the different lineups … At a certain point, you can come up with all those reasons, but those become excuses.”