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Chris Paul’s absence for 6-8 weeks represented a pivotal moment in the season for the league-leading Phoenix Suns, but also a potential blessing in disguise. While that right thumb avulsion fracture put the Point God’s timeline for a return right up against the start of the playoffs, the Suns had a comfy, 6.5-game lead over the rest of the pack for the NBA’s top record.
That meant they had a little more leeway to experiment, put players in expanded roles and get a glimpse of their post-CP3 future, when the younger core will be expected to carry the load.
Without the league leader in assists and with additional injuries piling on, the Suns have discovered plenty about themselves since the All-Star break. They are thriving, not just surviving.
“We’ve shown that we can win in different ways, we’ve shown that we can win with different lineups,” coach Monty Williams said. “It may be like that for the rest of the year. We’re trying to get the No. 1 seed, obviously, but we’re also trying to just keep getting better. And I think when you have those experiences with different guys in different situations, that helps your team grow.”
Sunday’s gutsy overtime win over the Sacramento Kings was a prime example. On paper, barely beating a 25-win team doesn’t seem overly impressive. But considering it was on the road, in a poorly officiated game, with Paul, Cam Johnson and Cam Payne out, with Jae Crowder leaving the game with a third-quarter injury, and with Devin Booker, Deandre Ayton and JaVale McGee all fouling out? Not to mention Landry Shamet putting up 20 off the bench, including a clutch go-ahead 3, plus guys like McGee, Aaron Holiday and Torrey Craig all getting crunch-time reps?
That suddenly becomes an impressive testament to this team’s ability to keep on chugging no matter who’s out there.
“Things kept getting thrown at us, and we just find ways to win games,” Shamet said. “It’s been our M.O. this year, and it’s going to be incredibly valuable for us moving forward to have these experiences under our belt.”
The Suns are getting plenty of range with their experiences, but they’ve posted a 10-4 record without Paul so far. That .714 win percentage would lead the NBA over the course of a full season, and Phoenix ranks third in Net Rating, sixth in offensive rating and third in defensive rating since the break.
So how are the Suns getting it done? The truth is, it’s been a collective effort, but a few players’ progress stands out above the rest. The most noteworthy strides demand our attention, but since there’s so much ground to cover, we had to break it into two parts. Here’s Part 1:
A true collective
The Suns are a well-oiled machine that just keeps humming no matter who’s in or out. Despite boasting a 58-14 record that is nine games better than the next-best team, Phoenix has only had it’s Big 3 of Booker, Paul and Ayton available for 32 of those games.
They’re 26-6 with those three available, which means they’ve gone 32-8 without the Big 3 active. They’re 10-4 without Paul, 8-3 without Booker, 18-3 without Ayton and 3-1 without both Paul and Booker.
Since the All-Star break, Booker has missed four games. Crowder’s missed two, Johnson’s missed nine and Payne’s missed four. A lot of teams preach that “next man up” mentality, but the Suns have a roster and system equipped to actually manifest it.
“Everybody’s just stepping up,” Mikal Bridges said. “We know what we had to do, it was a year under our belt, and with another year, we’re just getting more comfortable with each other. Everybody’s just playing their role and everybody’s getting better.”
JaVale McGee said it’s “25% each” between coaching, culture, depth and flat-out talent, enabling the Suns to continue racking up wins despite all the injuries.
“The way we’re going out there and playing without some of the the biggest stars on our team, or some of the most contributors on our team, and still dominating teams is even scarier, to tell the truth,” McGee said. “I can’t wait ’til we finish these games off the right way and get into that playoff run.”
The wins are great in Williams’ eyes too, but giving guys opportunities to show what they can and can’t do has been an invaluable learning experience — one he hopes pays off in the postseason.
“I think it has put stress on everybody, but that stress helps you find out some things about your team,” Williams said. “Cam’s been able to play a bigger role, we’ve had different guys play the point guard position from Book to Landry, even Mikal and Jae and Cam Johnson have facilitated offense. So I think in a pinch as we go forward, we’re not afraid to do those things because guys have been in those positions. I think it’s allowed for guys to step up in their leadership a little bit.”
That message has reverberated up and down the roster. Filling in for Crowder in Houston, Craig’s first start with the Suns this season featured quite possibly the best game of his career, as he put up 21 points, 14 rebounds and 2 blocks on a perfect 8-of-8 shooting. He followed that up with 14 points and 9 rebounds on a perfect 5-of-5 shooting in his second start.
Filling in for Book during his time in health and safety protocols, Shamet got his groove back on a big road trip, posting 14.0 points per game on 50% shooting from downtown over his four starts. Since the break, Shamet has canned 42.1% of his 3s, and with the Law of Averages finally overtaking Murphy’s Law, Book said there have been nights where he’s told Shamet, “I don’t want to see another pass out of you.”
That “equal-opportunity offense,” as Booker frequently calls it, has empowered almost every single player who’s been thrust into a spot start over the last few weeks. It’s the perfect way to spend this time without Paul before the playoffs, all while continuing to pile on wins.
“Everybody’s growing, everybody’s evolving,” Booker said. “That’s what this regular season’s for. I think last year was our first season together of finding the chemistry and finding what we do and what works well down the stretch and just still trying to find those ways, trying to manipulate the game and find different ways to win.”
The violence of Deandre Ayton
Perhaps no one has impressed more with their offensive growth since the All-Star break than Ayton, as we’ve covered extensively here. But it bears repeating: DA has been a monster without his leading floor general, in ways no one but the Stan-iest of Stans could’ve predicted.
It was reasonable to wonder how his offense might be impacted without Paul, who had accounted for 45% of the assists on Ayton’s made baskets entering the break. But without the guy who routinely set him up for easy buckets, DA expanded his game in new and exciting ways.
“I think any time DA catches the ball and he’s aggressive and violent with that movement,” Williams said. “Whether it’s a back-down, left shoulder jump hook type thing or that jab, I think any explosive move he can make, the better for us. We’re trying to figure out ways to get him in situations where he can duck in or his pick-and-pop to 15 or he’s been pretty efficient with the floater, which is another area where he can dive and be explosive.”
Before the break, Ayton was averaging 16.5 points per game on 63.3% shooting with a +4.2 point differential. In the 14 games since then, he’s bumped his output to 18.4 points a night on 67.8% shooting with a +9.3 point differential. That included a season-high 30 points in his battle with Giannis Antetokounmpo.
There have been a few subpar rebounding nights with all that extra emphasis on scoring, but Ayton is delivering on the promise of becoming more than a typical rim-running big.
To be clear, he’s still elite in that respect, shooting 78.9% in the restricted area since the break. But he’s also become a master in the short roll, hitting 75% of his floaters and 74.6% of his looks in the paint that aren’t in the restricted area.
An old Tim Duncan mantra of “catch high, keep high” has been a point of emphasis on his paint touches, but his improved physicality has been eye-opening as well. Gone are the days when Ayton would timidly pass out of the lane when confronted with smaller help defenders. Now, he doesn’t mind texting his coach that he can dominate down low, and then backing it up by putting his body into guys, turning over his shoulder and letting his patented jump hook loose.
“Playoffs are right there, man,” he explained. “I gotta be the aggressor. I can’t let them be the aggressor to me. That’s what I did last year. So this is just me tightening up. I’m polishing up my shoes before I go march.”
Since the break, Ayton has made 26 of his 33 hook shots — a staggering 78.8% conversion rate.
“His touch is there, I think he’s been more physical than he’s ever been, as of recent, and he’s noticing how big he is,” Booker noted. “At any point when he’s in that paint, or even outside of the paint, he can go to that jump hook and it’s cash.”
Ayton said he had to get in the weight room and work on his lower body strength so defenders couldn’t get lower than him and move him out of the paint. The results were clear last week in a blowout win over the Chicago Bulls, as Ayton forcibly went up, over and through Nikola Vucevic on number of spin moves, absorbing contact and going right into his hook completely unbothered.
“He’s aggressive in the post, he’s making violent moves with the ball,” Williams said afterward. “I didn’t see a ton of finesse tonight. I saw, like, ‘I’m getting to my spot, and if you’re not going to give me any resistance, I may go through you and finish with a jump hook or a turnaround or whatever.’ Even on his face-ups, it’s not a finesse face-up, it’s a violent face-up, and the touch to knock down those shots is a weapon for us.”
Ayton has also become a knockdown shooter from the midrange, canning 48.9% of his looks from that area of the floor and 58.8% of his jump shots since All-Star weekend. Those middies on face-ups, sometimes with a jab step thrown in to keep his defender off-balance, have become a reliable staple in his game.
“I’m doing what the defense give me,” Ayton said. “A lot of teams are used to me rolling, but I’m just finding the open spaces on the court and just taking advantage of them the best way I can.”
“Reps remove doubt” is a Monty-ism the Suns live by, and Ayton has put in the work with assistant Mark Bryant to expand his arsenal. The key has been balance with his dives to the basket and taking what defenses concede from the midrange. Without Paul around, Ayton’s ability to score on go-to moves like his hook shot, floater and deadeye middy is adding facets to Phoenix’s offense that could become crucial in the playoffs.
“For me, it’s like adding to who we are so we don’t become Chris- and Book-dimensional when it counts,” Williams said. “I think having Mikal and Cam and Jae and DA as options, especially in big moments, really helps us. So anytime a guy like DA can play in that environment, but especially down the stretch when teams start to take Chris and Book away, I think that helps us.”
Building new Bridges
DA isn’t the only member of the Suns’ young core who’s become a prominent, consistent pillar of the offense lately. After Phoenix’s star backcourt got taken away in the NBA Finals, it became vital for Bridges and Ayton to be able to embrace more responsibility on offense.
“We need them to be aggressive, we’ve been preaching that since last year,” Booker said. “It takes a lot of pressure off everybody, and we wouldn’t be telling them be aggressive if we didn’t know they were capable of doing what they do. They’ve showed it in spots, more spots this year than last, and that’s just the process of getting better and learning this league.”
With Paul out, Bridges has gone from 14.1 points on 10.0 field goal attempts per game before the break to 17.4 points on 12.7 field goal attempts a night. He’s also putting up incredibly efficient .522/391/.842 shooting splits over that stretch.
Williams cited Bridges’ willingness to attack late in the shot clock as a sign of his growth from last year. That was on full display against the Kings, as Bridges put up 27 points on 9-of-18 shooting, tying his season high in scoring and setting a new season high in shot attempts:
“I think when you go to those guys out of a timeout, or when you call their play, I think it gives them confidence,” he said. “I wasn’t as apt to do that earlier in the season, and even last year. Now, having been through what we’ve been through in the playoffs, I realize the value of putting guys in certain situations so they can see what it feels like, and if they succeed, that’s great. But the experience, I believe, will help us going forward as a team so that we don’t become one- or two-dimensional with Chris and Book.”
The reps from last year’s playoff run were eye-opening for Bridges in regards to what he needed to work on over the summer. The Suns fell short when the Milwaukee Bucks keyed in on Booker and Paul, but Bridges feels that learning experience has prepared him for that same scenario during another playoff run.
“That all adds up,” he said. “I’ve talked about it a lot, just the playoffs and Finals, about needing another scorer just in general, just everybody else being aggressive ’cause they’re gonna try to take out Book and CP. So it’s just everybody else stepping up.”
Bridges has certainly heeded the call, scoring in double figures in 12 straight games and 25 of his last 26. During that stretch, he’s hit the 20-point mark 10 times, showcasing his knack for putting the ball out of the floor and either getting to the hoop or pulling up for a tidy midrange jumper.
The uptick in offensive production is great, but Bridges’ defense and availability shouldn’t be overlooked either. That game-winning block in Orlando certainly comes to mind:
After 50 impressive minutes on both ends of the floor against Sacramento on Sunday, Williams and Booker advocated for Bridges as the Defensive Player of the Year on Sunday, calling attention to the heavy burden he bears on a nightly basis.
“He doesn’t duck a matchup, he plays every night, he guards everyone, plays 50 minutes, still produces on offense,” Williams said. “I don’t get into the iron man thing, I just think the young man loves to play, he loves to work and he’s a winner. When you look at what he did at Villanova, he’s doing the same thing here, just on a much bigger stage. He guards the toughest guys every single night without a blink, and everybody in that locker room appreciates what he does every single night.”
The fact that he’s played all 72 games this season for Phoenix, while leading the NBA in total minutes, should not be lost on anyone.
“I think that’s something that goes unnoticed and that all of us take for granted, just his availability him bringing it every night and just any task or any job isn’t too big for him,” Booker said. “You’ll never see him complaining, you see him with his head down working.”
Go on to Part 2 here.
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