The Phoenix Suns Have an INSANE Problem…

The Phoenix Suns Have an INSANE Problem…

Yo what’s going on y’all it’s con back here again today with another video and today want to talk for a little bit about the Phoenix Suns last night they face off against the Denver Nuggets in a really fun game just another example of how these West Coast late night TNT

Matchups always seem to deliver on National Television it’s happened so many times this season and this one did so again as both a rematch of last year’s playoff series between these two teams and potentially a playoff preview because right now if the season ended today the Nuggets would be the three

Seed the Suns would be the six so this would be a match up in the first round one that would be really fun full of star power and has a bunch of storylines going into it of course like I said these two teams played last year the

Nuggets are now going to be looking to repeat in the Western Conference as well as the NBA as a whole as NBA champions while the Phoenix ns are looking to finally get over the hump this time with a big three of Devon Booker Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal this game delivered on

A lot of the hype it was really fun all throughout the Nugget started off great with Jamal Murray going crazy in the first quarter they built up a little bit of lead heading into the second but by the 926 six Mark in the third quarter the Suns had built up a massive 22-point

Lead on Denver in Denver in a game where they didn’t have Devin Booker who’s arguably their best player Kevin Durant was cooking out there Yousef nurkic did a really solid job on Nicole yic defensively did get in a bit of a foul trouble situation but overall really

Held his own fantastic stuff from him he’s been fantastic as of late as a whole especially on the boards I would know he grabbed 30 rebounds against my thunder Grayson Allen could not miss from three he started off eight for eight in this game and as a team they

Were playing fantastic defense so with all this building up again a 22-point third quarter lead it seemed like a statement win may be coming for Phoenix they did lose a little bit of steam towards the end of the third quarter the lead was only nine heading into the

Fourth but they battle back and forth with that lead heading into the 354 Mark in that fourth quarter where the lead was still at this point nine points then in typical 2024 Suns fashion they completely collapsed they mely gave up a 120 run to Denver which was capped off

By Jamal Murray bucket that gave Denver a three-point lead with 46 seconds left to go over that same stretch Fenix had a turnover and shot 0 for four with Yousef nkic fing out in the process and giving yic some critical free throws it was a disastrous stretch one that we’ve seen

From the Phoenix Suns a lot this year and it felt like it might lose them what otherwise was going to be a statement win of a game lucky for them they do have Kevin Durant who had a huge step back three with 27 seconds to go to

Ultimately tied the game and send it to overtime after they got a stop on Denver on the other end where all of a sudden the Suns just seemingly relearned how to play basketball they would outscore Denver 15 to5 in the overtime period and win by 10 points in what is ultimately a

Major win for this Phoenix team they’ve been really up and down throughout the year they’ve got one of the hardest remaining schedules in the entire NBA and they’re in the midst of a really close Western Conference where if you lose a couple of games you can drop drastically down the standing so they

Really need this win they need all the wins they can get and being able to come back from that massive fourth quarter collapse is huge for this team going forward so shout out to Phoenix Suns this video isn’t to rag on them I think they’ve been a good team overall this

Season but it is to highlight that fourth quarter issue that we saw in this game and that has been prevalent this entire season now I I don’t think a lot of people realize just how truly bad the Suns have been in fourth quarters this year I’m not exaggerating when I say

That this is the worst fourth quarter team in the entire NBA in fact they’re one of the worst fourth quarter teams in NBA history it’s legitimately insane how bad they are in those final 12 minutes it’s like they just freeze and don’t know what sport they’re playing despite

Having a lot of great talented players on that roster on the season the Phoenix hunts have a fourth quarter net rating of minus 14.8 which is the worst in basketball by a mile the second worst team in that regard are the Miami Heat and they have a net rating of minus 5.9

So the Suns have more than double them in the negative in that regard it’s ridiculous how much worse they’ve been than everyone else and even with that Heat team they’ve been known for struggling in the fourth quarter one of my best friends Matt is a big Heat fan

And every time they go into the fourth quarter the lead he’s like okay here we go this is the part where they try and blow it maybe they end up holding on for a win but he knows the lead isn’t going to last that team is half as bad as the

Phoenix Suns and then some in fourth quarters to put it into a bit more of a historical context nba.com fourth quarter database goes all the way back to the 1996 1997 season and from then until now there have only been two teams that have had a worse fourth quarter net

Rating than the Phoenix Suns and those two squads were the San Antonio Spurs last year who tanked hard enough to get Victor wanyama and then the Portland Trailblazers the year before the year where Daman lard had that core injury he ended up playing not that much of the

Season and was really bad when he did show up and that team tanked absolutely egregiously in the second half neither one of those teams were actively trying to compete the way the suns are they have a worse fourth quarter net rating than the Charlotte Bobcats who are the

Worst team in NBA history a worse one than the 1072 76ers it’s insane how bad they are in the final 12 minutes of games in fact while we’re on the topic of that 2012 Bobcats team who again are the worst team in NBA history they they’re also tied for the worst net

Rating in history with a 15.2 in the negative that net rating for their full season is hardly worse than what the Suns do in fourth quarters which means the suns are basically playing like the worst team in NBA history the second that the clock takes over from third

Until the fourth quarter getting back to just this season they have easily the worst offense in the fourth the seventh worst defense to go with the worst turnover right by a lot and the second worst true shooting percentage it’s been abysmal and if we want to take a look at

Some specific examples we can do that as well in these examples that are just coming off the top of my head with a couple minutes of research to verify so there’s a lot more than this January 7th they were up 11 on the gries going into the fourth and got outscored by 17

Blowing the lead and losing to a really bad Memphis Squad January 8th the literal next day they were facing the Clippers down 10 going into the fourth made a little bit of a run to start and it seemed like they might bring it back and then got eviscerated the rest of the

Way getting completely blown out on the process in late January versus the Pacers they were up nine going into the fourth and got outscored by 11 points a game you might remember because that was the one they lost despite Devin Booker scoring 62 points and they only put up

17 against the abysmal Pacers offense in that fourth quarter just the other day against again my favorite team the Oklahoma City Thunder the Suns overcame a 24-point deficit and took the lead in the fourth quarter they were up 98 to 92 with 8 minutes and 40 seconds to go up

Six the momentum was shifting all in their favor and then OKC went on a 26 to2 run the rest of the way and ended up winning by eight points pretty convincingly at the end some of these examples were when they had all three starss available some of them included

Two it really hasn’t mattered injuries have definitely affected them and their ability to build chemistry for these late game moments but it really hasn’t mattered who’s been on the court they’ve been getting annihilated in fourth quarters regardless of who’s out there it’s been a little bit better I guess as

Of late over the last 10 games they’re just the sixth worst team in fourth quarters and over the last 15 they’re just the third worst so it’s I guess progress but it’s not nearly enough to erase what is one of the craziest storylines that I’ve been following this

Entire season even in wins they’re falling apart completely and they’re having to just barely hold on at the end which is made even Crazier by the fact that they’re really good in all other quarters in the first quarter they’ve got the six best net rating in the

Second quarter they’re a plus 8.6 which is the fourth best in the entire NBA and in the third quarter they have a net rating of plus 12.2 which is tied with Oklahoma City for the best in the entire NBA every other quarter they’re top 16 but when you get to the fourth they’re

Just so historically bad that it leads to them falling apart more often than not so the question is why is this happening why are they collapsing so badly at the end of games and I’ve got some observations and some numbers we can take a look at that kind of explain

It if you ask me but at the same time I don’t think it Paints the full picture because none of these things should lead them to being the worst fourth quarter team almost in the history of the sport let’s talk about the turnovers they are a big problem for this team against the

Thunderin know specifically a team that is great at forcing turnovers the Suns had a billion of them and that was was a big reason why the thunder were able to shift momentum back in their favor in that fourth quarter on that Big Run they went on like I mentioned earlier they

Have the worst turnover percentage in the entire league in these fourth quarter moments and I think that could be the lack of a point guard kind of coming back to bite them they’ve got some good ball handlers like Devon Booker Bradley beel when he’s been healthy Kevin Durant is a pretty solid

Playmaker for his position but they don’t have that one true floor General and that was a big concern for a lot of people coming into the season especially treading away Chris Paul who is so big for them in that role over the past few years as a Phoenix Sun a great example

Of this is if we go back to that 2022 season where they were the best team in the Western Conference in the regular season they were easily the best fourth quarter team in a lot of that was Chris Paul at the end of games slowing things down making sure they got good shots

Running a lot of clock to sustain the leads that they had it’s stuff that Chris Paul has been doing for years at this point and now without a guy who has it experience and knows how to do that I think the suns are suffering like Booker

Be Durant have done a fine job of setting up the offense at times I just don’t know if any one of them are capable of being that LE lead playmaker and decision maker late in games like a lot of other Great Floor generals are so that’s one thing that’s been pretty

Concerning and Stems back to the beginning of the Season where people had General concerns about this the suns are also really relying on big-time tough shot making from Kevin Durant Devon Booker and Bradley be and those guys are some of the best in the business at

Doing that but it’s got to be exhausting I feel like by the time we get to the fourth quarter they just start missing looks that they typically hit probably because they’re gassed from carrying the offensive load the way that they have to on most nights there’s also just a ton

Of pressure coming at those guys in the fourth quarter teams are saying The Supporting Cast can beat us they don’t trust The Supporting Cast to help the Stars the way that they probably need them to and they’re just sending a bunch of pressure help double teams whatever

They can at Kevin Durant Devon Booker Bradley Beal whatever stars are actually available on that night and saying if it’s like Royce O’Neal or Grayson Allen or Yousef nerkish beating us okay we’re going to live with that and the cast just isn’t that consistent this is a team that’s really relying on their

Stars but I think the overreliance is leading to just bad decision making in a lot of iso ball down the stretch of games this also comes back again to the point guard thing because I think having a great floor General to set these guys up would make their lives a whole lot

Easier but it’s just not a luxury that they have so these are some of the things that I think lead to a lot of these fourth quarter collapses although again it’s s a historic level so I think even part of it may be mental I wonder

If they know about how bad they’ve been in fourth quarters like they know the stats that they’re making history in that regard and I wonder if they get to Fourth quarters and think to themselves okay we can’t collapse this time we can’t collapse and kind of get in the

OWN heads and then just do end up falling apart like they typically do although one thing that’s super weird about this whole thing and all these theories all these observations is again the fact that they get to overtime and they kind of just figure it out and

Dominate teams maybe it’s just okay we got over that fourth quarter hump now in overtime we can kind of just play our ball maybe it’s a little bit of a rest they get between the quarters I don’t know what it is but just the fourth quarter in particular whether it’s a

Mental thing it’s an on court thing with the lack of a point guard the overreliance on these tough shots on ISO ball something is happening that is leading to the Suns being one of the worst fourth quarter teams in NBA history and this is something that’s

Concerning to me when we talk about a potential playoff run coming from Phoenix you can get away with this a lot of nights against some bad teams you can even have some nights where you get away with it against a great team like Denver but also in this game the Nuggets were

Just bricking a ton of Threes that they usually hit it was an off night from joic which you’re basically never going to get in the playoffs you have to be better than this if you want to compete with the nuggets in a playoff series or any of those teams towards the top of

The Western Conference they can’t be having these collapses the way that they have maybe with the amount of experience they have on the roster between Kevin Durant who’s won a couple of finals Booker who’s been to one vogle who’s coached a finals team Bradley Beals had some deep playoff runs maybe they just

Figure it out by the time they reach the playoffs they have some time leading into it as a healthy team they can build some chemistry and maybe it won’t end up being a problem but I don’t really know it’s just continued as a problem it’s been so prevalent that nothing makes me

Feel like it’s going to be fixed by the time the playoffs roll around honestly they might just have to hope they’re dominant enough in the first three quarters to make sure that any claps that that happens isn’t enough to ultimately hand them the L in the end

Honestly this has been one of the most interesting and random things that have been following this entire season it’s crazy how continuous it’s been how historically significant it is we’ll have to see what the Phoenix Suns can do it feels almost reminiscent of last year where the Golden State Warriors were

Just one of the worst teams in the NBA on the road but dominant at home despite being this veteran Squad that had so much Championship experience was literally coming off a championship the year before I don’t know what really happened there I don’t really know what’s happening now with Phoenix we’ll

See if they can figure out by time the playoffs roll around but for the moment it is definitely something to keep an eye on I appreciate you watching leave a like And subscribe if you enjoyed hit the notification Bell so you don’t miss out future videos let me know what you

Think the reason is for these Phoenix Suns fourth quarter woses and if you think they can figure it out going into the playoffs or is it even something to really be concerned about is it just a weird regular season Quirk and by the time the playoffs roll around you’re not

Actually that concerned I appreciate you watching I’ll see youall later real one say back

The Phoenix Suns are in the midst of a weird season after coming into the year as championship contenders according to many. They started off rough, found a rhythm, and are now fighting nightly for playoff positioning in a brutal Western Conference playoff race. Last night they got a big win over the Denver Nuggets without Devin Booker, but nearly threw away a large lead in the process, something they’ve been doing all season. In fact, the Phoenix Suns are not just the worst fourth quarter team in the NBA this season, they’re one of the worst we’ve ever seen. Let’s talk about it.

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0:00 – Intro
0:49 – Nuggets vs Suns
3:12 – The Fourth Quarter Collapses
4:09 – Historically Bad
5:14 – They Keep Choking
7:33 – Why is this Happening?
10:32 – Fine in Overtime
11:01 – Cause for Concern
12:25 – Outro