Suns learn valuable lessons about JaVale McGee and Frank Kaminsky in Deandre Ayton's absence

The Phoenix Suns wouldn’t be sitting at .500 right now without Frank Kaminsky and JaVale McGee.

In Tuesday’s game against a New Orleans Pelicans side missing its two best players, with a first-year head coach at the helm, the Suns found themselves trailing by as many as 20 points in the first half. That they were able to turn it into a 112-100 victory was a reminder of what happens when this team plays Suns basketball, but also a crash-course in what makes Phoenix’s backup bigs effective.

While the 1-7 New Orleans Pelicans can only take so many lessons from games played without Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram, the Suns learned firsthand in the NBA Finals how important the frontcourt rotation behind Deandre Ayton can be. That made DA’s absence on Tuesday an important proving ground for the bench bigs.

Facing off against Jonas Valanciunas, who’s averaging 19.4 points and 14.6 rebounds per game so far this season, the Suns figured to have their hands full with Ayton sidelined by the lower leg contusion he suffered in Saturday’s game against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

But even though Valanciunas had a strong night (23 points and 14 rebounds on 9-of-16 shooting), it was McGee and especially Kaminsky who injected life into the comeback, long before Chris Paul took over in the second half or Devin Booker closed things out down the stretch.

What the Suns learned about Frank Kaminsky

Finishing his night with 17 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 steals and 1 block in 29 minutes, Kaminsky was one of the lone bright spots for the Suns in that abysmal first half. He was rolling hard, creating turnovers and was highly efficient with his offensive touches.

While Booker struggled to the tune of 18 points on 7-of-20 shooting, Kaminsky did his part to compensate for it, only needing eight shots to get his 17 points. He knocked down one of his two 3-point attempts and made all six of his free throws.

It was no coincidence that Kaminsky finished as a team-high +18. The fact that he rose to the occasion despite only playing a grand total of 10 minutes leading into this game wasn’t lost on his head coach.

“Frank Kaminsky’s effort tonight and his ability to emotionally and mentally be ready and work hard every day, it’s a testament to just staying with it,” Monty Williams said. “He doesn’t complain, just does his work every day, first guy on the floor. I talked to him this morning about playing and it was almost like he was a rotation guy who had played 35 minutes the game before. Nothing had changed.”

As if the offensive production wasn’t enough for a team missing DA and its backup point guard in Cam Payne, Kaminsky played tremendous defense on Valanciunas. He made JV work for everything in the post, and although Kaminsky only finished with 3 rebounds, that number doesn’t take into account how many strong box-outs he had to help Phoenix corral the rebound. Boxing out a guy with Valanciunas’ brute strength and sheer mass takes dedication.

“He came in and basically changed the game for us in a number of respects, and he played really good defense on Valanciunas,” Williams said. “We didn’t have to double, and that allowed us to stay with their shooters.”

In the first half, Valanciunas bulldozed his way to 16 points on 7-of-9 shooting. By the end of the third quarter, he had 23 points on 9-of-13 shooting. In the fourth? He scored just 3 points, and he didn’t hit a single bucket against Kaminsky in the second half.

The Suns continued their confounding early-season habit of over-helping and leaving opposing shooters unmarked, but Kaminsky’s ability to check JV one-on-one contributed to New Orleans nosediving from 52.2 percent shooting in the first half to 26.7 percent in the second.

Williams said Phoenix hasn’t run one of their old offenses from last year because Dario Saric has been out and Kaminsky hasn’t been playing much, but Frank’s ability to be a connector in Tuesday’s performance on both ends has Monty rethinking that approach.

“Where we transfer the ball through the trail and play on the other side, we haven’t done that, because we’ve tried to take advantage of DA and JaVale’s ability to set screens and roll,” Williams explained. “But the way Frank played tonight, I have to try to implement him somehow and see if we can get more of that done, because it’s well-known if you can play from one-third of the floor to the other third, your efficiency goes up, just because you move the defense and you allow yourself to have a chance to attack the paint.”

Where he gets minutes, especially when Ayton returns, remains to be seen. Williams largely shot down the notion of dual-big lineups with Kaminsky and McGee, since opponents can throw out rangy, mobile, floor-spacing 4s to counter it. But against other dual-big lineups, or on nights where the JaVale McGee Roller Coaster feels more nauseating than exhilarating, Kaminsky proved he deserves an opportunity.

What the Suns learned about JaVale McGee

His final stat line of 18 points, 5 rebounds and 1 block in just 19 minutes looks great, especially with the 7-of-10 shooting from the floor and 4-of-5 shooting from the foul line. But for the better part of three quarters, it was tough sledding for JaVale McGee.

Getting the start for Ayton, McGee is part of the reason the Suns found themselves trailing by double figures early in the first half. Through his first 13 minutes of action, he was a disastrous -19. He finished the game as a team-worst -6, and on the season, he’s a team-worst -28 in 91 total minutes.

But that might just be part of the JaVale McGee Experience: breathless highs, lows that leave you gasping for breath, and rapid oscillation between the two.

McGee had another four turnovers on Tuesday, putting him at 12 total through six games. The 33-year-old’s per 36 minutes numbers have always been staggering, but his team-worst 4.7 turnovers per 36 are eye-opening for the wrong reasons.

However, McGee being a +13 over his last 6 minutes of game action wasn’t a coincidence either, and Williams thinks he understands the key to utilizing the seven-footer properly.

“In about four- or five-minute spurts, he has unreal energy, and we’re starting to recognize that,” Williams said.” You don’t want to put a guy in a deficit. JaVale’s played a lot of basketball, and I don’t think anybody is in great, great shape in the league right now. So I think that’s something I have to manage better overall. We’re just trying to figure it out with this group. It’s another new player that we’re trying to figure out how to utilize well.”

It wasn’t pretty for most of the night, but thanks to his size, rim-running and length, McGee finished off a number of momentum-shifting plays in the second half. Playing more minutes alongside Chris Paul instead of Elfrid Payton didn’t hurt either.

“I think JaVale and Chris are finding a chemistry,” Devin Booker said. “Every time they get out there, it gets a little bit better, and JaVale’s being in the right spots and he’s getting rewarded. You see what he does with it when he gets the ball in the middle. He can make plays too, but tonight, a couple of incredible dunks that I haven’t seen outta many people.”

Book’s not wrong about that. This looks like a high school All-American throwing down on a nerf hoop:

What the Suns learned about Deandre Ayton

In the first half, it was easy (and lazy) to point to Ayton’s absence as the reason the Suns were trailing a team that tops out as a first-round playoff exit with Ingram and Zion healthy. But the issues of turnovers, or over-collapsing and leaving shooters open, had nothing to do with the big fella or his replacements.

So when Paul and the Suns adjusted to New Orleans’ defensive blitzes in the pick-and-roll, Kaminsky and McGee started feasting. Williams, Booker and the Suns have mentioned “dynamic rolling” as a crucial part of what makes their offense successful, and when Ayton rolls hard, there are very few bigs in the NBA that demand as much attention with their gravity. It’s the real reason he had such a quiet second half after dominating the Sacramento Kings last week: Defenses are forced to adjust to him in ways that they simply won’t for McGee or Kaminsky.

However, there is one area where Ayton can actually learn from his backups, and that’s from their ability to put the ball on the floor as the roll man, take one or two dribbles, and either close the distance to the hoop or free up someone on the perimeter.

For the most part, McGee’s rolls were pretty basic, which is good, because he often gets into trouble when he’s too liberal with his handles or his passes. Keeping it simple, he slipped the screen more than a few times, caught the pocket pass from his guard and used his length and momentum to finish around the basket:

But that nerf-hoop dunk from before? That required a dribble first. That finish on the third and final highlight above? A quick power dribble. Ayton has shown flashes of it, but hasn’t put it together frequently enough to make it a reliable tool in his bag.

Closing that gap between sagging defenders and the rim frees things up on the passing front too, as Kaminsky showed. Ayton is no slouch in terms of kicking it out when defenses collapse, but most of his passes are two-handed, overhead bullets. Passes like that are harder to handle and go up with cleanly, and they automatically wipe out most possibilities for dishing in tight spaces on cuts.

Kaminsky, on the other hand, has the touch and the confidence to thread the needle on a lob pass to Bridges on the backdoor cut here:

Going back to the importance of that dribble, Kaminsky putting the ball on the floor here in a confined space opens up another dump-off on Bridges’ cut:

And even though there’s no dribble here, Kaminsky’s passing window and velocity are precise, getting Devin Booker the ball in rhythm for a dagger long 2:

That ability to keep the ball moving is what makes Frank Kaminsky unique compared to the rim-running archetypes of Ayton and McGee. On the nights Phoenix needs extra size or simply a different skill-set from the frontcourt, it’s what could earn him minutes as well.

“I don’t want to get happy on the farm after one game, but it’s hard to just sweep a game like that under the rug,” Williams said. “I thought his dives and finishes, the way he got the ball from side to side, that gave us life in the first half. We were playing one-pass shot, one-action shot or turnover. Frank came in, and it wasn’t just him, but his ability to recognize the second side of the floor really helped us. That’s why I call him a connector.”