Phoenix Suns Not Polished Enough To Hold Off Boston In Home Loss Despite 45 From Kevin Durant

Phoenix Suns Not Polished Enough To Hold Off Boston In Home Loss Despite 45 From Kevin Durant

On today’s bonus edition of the locked on suns podcast why the Phoenix Suns lost to the Boston Celtics on Saturday night despite strong performances from Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal and does this team have any shot against Boston or is it just a bad matchup you are locked on suns your

Daily Phoenix Suns podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team f every Day we are back this is locked on feeding Suns we are part of the lockon podcast Network I’m your host Brendan clean a credential media member covering the Suns for the past seven seasons A rer ATS suns.com I’m the host of the just basketball show wherever you get

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Qualified candidates you want to talk to faster post your job for free at linkedin.com lockon NBA that’s linkedin.com lockon NBA to post your job for free terms and conditions apply all right just got home off the light rail and little bit of an earlier tip so I guess not too bad

Disappointing loss double digits and the Suns pretty much trailed wire to wire and that’s why we’re going to start with the moment of the game that’s a little bit earlier than normal sometimes it just ends up being the fourth quarter and there’s no way around breaking that

Part of the game down in this case we’re going to go to the second quarter the beginning of the second quarter on Thursday night’s recap episode when the Suns beat Toronto I looked at the start of the fourth quarter and made a big deal about how important it was that the suns

Were able to basically play the Raptors to a draw in the beginning of that period with Durant off the court and I pointed out how vogle kept Durant off for maybe longer than he would have liked to or longer than he typically would and that the Suns pretty much held

Their lead I think the lead shrunk by one point but it was six full minutes that did not happen tonight didn’t really happen in the fourth quarter but it was especially pronounced in the second quarter where Durant goes to the bench and a lineup of Beal Gordon bullbull Drew

Eubanks and different guys Grayson Al at the beginning Royce O’Neil at a certain point nurkic comes in the lead went for from the deficit went from 5 to 11 so the suns were down five at the end of the first quarter by the time Durant checks in in the second

Quarter with 5 minutes and 27 seconds left to go they’re down 11 in those 6 and a half minutes the Suns only mustered 11 total points so they were on Pace for about 20 points in this quarter and a lot of things went wrong here that I think really were emblem atic

Of of the overall issues unless Bradley Beal was able to get around the screen effectively and hit a tough shot mid-range jumper floater contested layup punishing Luke cornette the Celtics backup center his drop defense the suns were not going to score they did not score so that’s why they only got 11 points

They also had several ugly turnovers here just sort of unexplainable not the boneheaded ones that we’ve seen at times in the fourth quarters especially with this team not telegraphing an entry pass or being lazy with an outlet pass or an inbounds pass but just avoidable mistakes right and the Celtics are hitting the

Offensive glass so it really was just everything kind of started to go wrong Pritchard gets an offensive rebound couple minutes later cornette gets an offensive rebound and on top of that again let me see how many turnovers there were the Suns had one two turnovers in this stretch just a lot of incremental

Mistakes and un unstructured offense and I would say that’s probably you know back to the if Beal couldn’t make a tough shot thing that’s really what doomed them the turnovers are an offshoot of that and everything stems on the offensive end with this team a lot of the time

From the fact that they just don’t have flow they don’t have any sort of coherence to what they’re doing there was a possession that I feel like was just about as bad as it got about maybe all game but really just drives home what I’m describing in this particular portion of the

Game where Eric Gordon gets off of a of a m of a make so they’re inbounding the ball they inbounded to Gordon which even when the suns were having their turnover can somebody just walk the ball up the court and enter the ball to Durant mistakes and issues earlier in the

Season even then they never inbound the ball to Gordon so even that was uncharacteristic he jogs it up the left sideline I believe ends up drawing cornette out or no I actually think it was Hower and kind of dribbling the air out of the ball for a few seconds and then

Just pulling up from three so the ball ends up in the wrong guy’s hands off of the inbound he doesn’t make any attempt to run any sort of offense and he takes an incredibly difficult shot in a game where he did not have it going that is

Just like one two three four five like a domino of things that should not be happening and you zoom out the sun’s actually w the minutes that Beal was in the game by one point they lost the minutes when Durant was in the game by one point

So they won it back somewhere maybe it was the beginning of that fourth quarter actually but this stretch again the lead got to double digits and it pretty much stayed there throughout they fought I’m not trying to take that away from them Durant 4510 and six Beal 25 and four

Even nurkic had a pretty solid game despite getting sent to the bench at times and they gave themselves a chance but once again these moments where not all of the big three are on the court and some lesser players are out there doomed them so let’s talk a little bit about

Those lesser players and in particular why this Celtics team is such a bad matchup for the Suns because they will be facing them within the next week we’ll get to that next first Today’s Show brought to you by eBay Motors our partners at eBay motors have teamed up with lockon fantasy

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Only exclusions apply why are the Phoenix Suns why did the Phoenix Suns struggle with the Celtics why is Boston a tough matchup for the Suns obvious major caveat that Devon Booker was not in the game another caveat only a 10-point loss and close enough in the fourth quarter

That I don’t think anyone feels like this was a disaster but I think there were very obvious ways that Boston the way they play the Personnel that they have have the level of poison execution that they play with did pose problems for the Suns that Booker can’t fully fix

And could flare up again on Thursday I guess so let’s start with some of the obvious right size it’s not that Boston is NE and porzingis didn’t even play tonight either right but it’s not that Boston is necessarily bigger than the Suns by any means it’s kind of the way that their

Size exists right they have they have Horford and porzingis so you can’t fully play Tiny against them this isn’t the Thunder or something or the Clippers at times in the past but then Tatum Brown holiday those three especially they’re big wings so offensively if they do decide to drive

You’re going to have a hard time corralling them defensively the versatility is there and then even in the big man spots Luke cornette posed a huge problem for the Suns today where their backup center a a lot of for a lot of teams that becomes a smaller player somebody who

Maybe is a one-way player somebody who’s very offensively inclined or very defensively inclined but rarely both cornet’s a limited player but because the Suns don’t necessarily run sophisticated stuff to attack certain players in isolation they’re not really able to do that and he just frankly

Is too much of a handful for EU Banks to deal with so that’s just some of like the physical size reasoning there I also think the fact that they have not one not two not three but four downhill scorers really puts the Suns at a disadvantage I mean they were

Doing what they could I I would say right I think guys like Grayson Allen Brad Le Beal Eric Gordon they were playing physically they were trying to cut off drives they were have trying to have active hands the Suns try to Zone especially when B was out there nerk is obviously always prowling

On the backline but with the drive and kick Style that the Sun that the Celtics play it’s just asking a lot of the Suns who don’t have a lot of length for help defense and don’t have a lot of highlevel cutof men but not baseball

Cutoff men but what I mean is guys who can kind of cut off drives prevent opposing players from getting to their spots they don’t really have that so if Boston is just determined and consistent with everything they probably feel pretty confident that they’re going to get a good shot eventually whether that

Is a drive that just results in a layup or free throws a kick out for three the second guy attacking the close out and getting downhill like inevitably it’s going to work because you just don’t feel like the Suns have enough to prevent it because of the foreheaded monster that Boston

Has the other part of what we saw tonight that I think can can be a problem although I think the Suns have been good at it at times it just didn’t really go their way tonight is that the Celtics control the transition game they’re like 10th or 11th in transition

Offense they’re first in transition defense and you really saw that tonight right the Suns technically had more fast break points but only 12 and I think the more telling stat is that the Celtics had 12 turnovers and the and the suns were only able to convert that into eight points

And the Celtics turned 15 Suns turnovers into 16 points it just really wasn’t a factor in the game and you compare that to th Tuesday against Denver the Suns had I thought very highlevel transition defensive game and I guess maybe not a ton in that game necessarily but in the playoffs last

Year against Denver for instance the Suns running and the clippers for in for uh for that matter the sun’s running especially Booker became a really huge Advantage it wasn’t against the Celtics because that’s an aspect of how the Celtics play that is just tough to tough to

Handle I guess to to kind of circle back to the size thing and and where that leads us leaves us is maybe better than saying size from a center standpoint is just to say I’m not sure the Suns have any Center who really makes sense against Boston

Because as I was just saying the Suns aren’t really the type of team that’s going to make cornette miserable make him pay for being out there the Celtics will make Bigs like that pay for being out there and nurkic is is a perfect example of that

Boston is not a great rebounding team so you would think nurkic could abuse there abuse them there but if he’s not able to really play on defense consistently for long stretches without being pulled into a switch and exposed then he’s not really able to use his strengths of being a rebounder and it

Starts to be pretty circular and then obviously Eubanks at his struggles as he does a lot of nights whether that was against cornette or just generally speaking and you could easily imagine this series becoming largely about how Durant plays at the five and there’s there’s just too many matchups like that

For my comfort personally but it’s going to be the sun’s only option at times and this is certainly one of those times we’ll see how they can fix some of this we’ll see how Booker helps when these two teams face off again on Thursday night in Boston but let’s close out the show

Talking a little bit about this rotation and some of the margin plays that again Boston tends to win and how those stacked up to hand the Suns and L first Today’s Show brought to you by LinkedIn when you’re hiring for your small business want to find quality professionals that are right for the

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Your job for free terms and conditions apply let’s close it out looking at the rotation here now I think the obvious place to start is Eric Gordon I mentioned him in that second quarter stretch the iso ball play that he had that was just a train wreck you know Bill Simmons who

Everybody knows has this saying uh or this sort of um analysis of older players guys that get into kind of their mid to late 30s where they can be good once a week it feels like that’s where Eric Gordon is right I’ve covered this plenty of times

But you have to remember where where things ended up with him the Clippers traded a first round pick that hilariously became cam Whitmore who I think is proving himself to be a very very high ceiling player in this league in Houston for Gordon at the deadline they had the ability when they

Made that trade to have him for two years which I’m sure is part of why they gave up a first round pick they have him in the building for the last 253 games of the season and into the postseason and they just cut him that’s how he ended up being a

Son and I think it’s because of the same thing we’re seeing he just wasn’t going to be worth the 20 or you know 15 to2 million dos that he was making because he just isn’t consistent enough now on a minimum contract you’re totally fine with that if Booker plays in this game

We probably don’t care that much what Eric Gordon does because maybe that’s the difference for the Suns to be able to win and plenty of other guys had solid games between bowl and Beal and Durant and nurkic but really with Gordon you just see it in the lack of impact at

All three total shots taken you know in 29 minutes it’s and there’s games where he does get steals or he can you know get some rebounds from time to time at you know maybe a few free throw attempts like we know the difference and you really can tell from just the box score

Not to mention some of the defensive problems that he had you know there he’s a very easycap goat because of this inconsistency but plenty of suns fans online were like bench him get him off the team whatever I can’t really fault you in this one so that was the main guy

Who posed issues but the other one that I think is just worth looking at a little closer is Sabin Lee as we do our benchmob Vibe check here the Suns offense so far this season with Sabin Lee on the court is has a 11.7 offensive rating just to put that into

Perspective if you were to compare compare that and just say that’s a team Sabin Lee on the Suns is is its own team in the NBA that team would rank 207th in offense in the league behind or ahead of Charlotte Portland and Memphis that’s it it really falls off a cliff he had

One of the worst stretches I would say of offensive basketball that I would say an a player can have in his four minutes he missed two threes one of which he overshot so much from the wing Corner area that it hit the other side of the backboard

Square and on the way down it basically soared all the way past the hoop smacked on its downward trajectory into the backboard and just cared back down toward the ground he also had an off offensive foul and a turnover which I guess that was the offensive

Foul and he didn’t see the court again David Rody comes in and once again the Celtics say great we’ll leave him open as well three threes zero mies so with aogi and Booker both out there’s probably not a good solution there Thad young is not as much as I would say why

Not try him against uh instead of Eubanks Maybe not in this matchup I understand cornette had a huge game it’d be kind of dumb for me to point that out and then also say Thad young should have been playing Center for this team Off the Bench I don’t think he should be playing

Point guard or Wing either which is what Savin Lee and David Rody play so I don’t know if it’s that simple I don’t really think ish Wayne Wright would have been much better personally but at the end of the day maybe the answer is just yeah I

Mean it’s just there’s not a lot you can do right now Durant O’Neal Beal and Allen are all playing 37 plus minutes Gordon didn’t play well what are you going to do you got to have some smaller guys out there at a certain point so maybe it’s inevitable but it was a

Big issue tonight for sure let us look at some of these smaller plays as we wrap things up I mentioned the offensive rebounds in that second quarter Boston wins that battle 13-10 turnovers they win it 12- 15 and they outshoot the Suns 15 of 39 for Boston just nine of 31 for

Phoenix could have brought this up when we were talking about the reasons the Suns don’t match up well with this team but I’ll just mention it here I mean this is true of almost every team I think the sun’s winning the at least being effective in the transition game

Against against Denver was a big part of why they won you have to win one of these little battles you have to outrebound your opponent or out three-point shoot or free throw shoot your opponent or limit your turnovers and have that margin favor you but if you’re losing all of them you’re going

To lose the game the margin are too tight the league is too good every team has star players we can say the Suns will just kind of talent their way into wins they will do that they can do that even in the postseason but frankly it’s not going to work four

Times out of seven and these things have to be cleaned up I think to the sun’s credit they’ve done a good job over the course of the Season cleaning them up but in this game they went 0 for three let’s say and obviously had some of these other issues that I talked about

So no matter how you slice it this one just got away from the Suns I think you would have to expect a better role player performance in the future in a home game maybe we don’t see that on Thursday in a road environment but Booker will be back they won’t need

As much from the role players and we’ll see how this all breaks down I will be back tomorrow with Brandon dwas talking a little more about this game I’m sure previewing the road trip and more hit follow or subscribe wherever you’re finding this show to get that episode and five more throughout

The week in your feed wherever you’re finding us and I will catch you guys then

Kevin Durant dropped a season high 45 but the Phoenix Suns didn’t have enough to match the Boston Celtics at home.

Brendon Kleen of @justbasketballfans breaks down how the 2nd quarter doomed the Suns, why Boston presents such a tough matchup, how the rotation is breaking down, and more.

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