Suns are running out of time to prove they can handle adversity after Game 2 loss to Timberwolves

“Insanity” usually refers to doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. But the Phoenix Suns have found a new way to define it for their fans: What happens if you do the same thing over and over again, get the same result…and still fail to change anything?

Phoenix’s 105-93 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 2 answered that question, but the lack of answers from the Suns team itself is driving their fanbase insane.

In Game 1, the Suns played a solid first half and held Anthony Edwards in check before falling apart at the seams in the third and fourth quarters. Grayson Allen sprained his ankle in the third quarter, turnovers were a problem yet again, and Phoenix looked bothered by Minnesota’s physicality and the sheer volume of the Target Center crowd.

In Game 2, every single one of those things happened again. And after another double-digit loss to a team Phoenix dominated during the regular season, it felt like more words and less definitive plans of action.

“We’ve just gotta regroup,” Devin Booker offered. “We have two days to think about it, two days to sit with it. We’ve showed that in spots this season. It’s something that we need to correct and correct urgently.”

Suns show lack of mental toughness

So what needs to be corrected?

“We didn’t keep our composure,” coach Frank Vogel said.

Because of the game not going their way, the hostile crowd, the officials, what?

“All of the above,” Vogel said. “We’ve gotta be better.”

But how, though?

“Whatever it takes as a team,” Bradley Beal said. “We gotta be better at coming together collectively in those moments. It’s crazy, ‘cause nobody’s energy is in the wrong space, nobody’s mindset is in the wrong place. I think everybody’s trying to do everything collectively, do it together and make it happen, make it work.”

The “be better” approach seems pretty straightforward! But isn’t it something this group has struggled with all season?

“Yeah,” Booker said simply.

His coach disagreed, however.

“Not really, we’ve been a pretty poised group throughout the course of the season,” Vogel said. “Came back in a lot of fourth quarters when we’ve been down, stayed locked into the game. But the emotions are higher in the playoffs, and the NBA playoffs will test your emotional stability, right? And we’ve gotta make sure that, as our first time going through this together as a group, when we face adversity, we have to respond to it.”

So what does responding to adversity look like for this team?

“We have to be better in those situations of just being calm, being more organized, keeping the crowd out of it, keeping the fans out of it, keeping the refs out of it,” Beal elaborated. “They’re gonna make good calls, they’re gonna make bad calls. We’re gonna make shots, we’re gonna miss shots. All of it is a part of the game, we just have to be better in those situations.”

It’s interesting both Vogel and Beal mentioned the officiating — or rather, the Suns’ poor response to the officiating. Vogel said it’s something they talked about as a team before the start of the playoffs.

“We can’t let the refs distract our focus,” Vogel said. “The refs didn’t beat us, the T-Wolves did. Okay? We got some bad calls, but that happens in every game. It happened both ways. We have to be locked in.”

When Booker was asked about possibly letting the officiating get under his skin, however, he disagreed with the implication that bad calls were the cause of his frustration.

“Yeah, you are [wrong],” Booker said. “My frustration is just within the team. We need to execute. We play well when we’re playing well, and then we need to stick together once things turn bad. Like I said, we’ve done that throughout the season, so something that has to be corrected.”

In Game 1, it was a flurry of Anthony Edwards buckets in the third quarter that blew the game wide open. In Game 2, a cocktail of missed shots, turnovers and balanced production from the Wolves fueled a pivotal 14-2 run for Minnesota. The home team never looked back from there, opening up the fourth quarter with a 15-5 spurt that essentially put the game away.

During one fourth quarter timeout, Beal could be seen barking in Vogel’s direction about something. After the game, the two said similar things about it being a “heat of the moment” type of exchange that wasn’t directed at Vogel.

“It was not between us two,” Beal explained. “It was just kind of like what was going on in the game, refs, our flow, like, our defense was bad. I’m just like, ‘What are we doing?’ We’re good. It wasn’t nothing like that.”

“Yeah, just talking through the game,” Vogel agreed.

Difference of opinion?

It was one of the few things the Suns seemed to be on the same page about after the game. Vogel believed his team was sound on the defensive side of the ball, because although the Wolves got 25 points out of Jaden McDaniels and 18 out of Mike Conley, Phoenix held Anthony Edwards (15 points and 8 assists on 3-of-15 shooting) and Karl-Anthony Towns (12 points on 3-of-7 shooting) in check.

“The defensive plan was good, our defensive adjustments I liked,” Vogel said. “I would run back the defensive side of this game again. We gotta do a better job on McDaniels and Conley, but the job we did on Edwards, holding that team to 105 points, I think, is gonna be defensively enough to beat these guys.”

Beal and Durant had other thoughts.

“We have to be better on the defensive end, that’s where we lost the game,” Beal said. “Can’t give Jaden McDaniels, 25-plus points, I think Mike Conley got it going again tonight too. And their two main guys, I’m not gonna say they didn’t do anything, but they were controlled pretty much the whole night. So that’s tough, you can’t let — no disrespect to them, but — the other guys just get going the way they did.”

When asked about where the offensive process fell apart in the second half, Durant only touched on it briefly before his thoughts switched to the defensive end.

“A little stagnant, I think we also got some good looks that we couldn’t hit, and on the other side, they stretched us out trapping the pick-and-roll, and now you got guys going downhill off a closeout,” Durant said. “It’s tough to stop. I think that’s kind of what their offense does. We’re trapping Ant, we’re trapping Conley, we’re stretched out, and they get guys going on the other side.”

This juxtaposition is not meant to sow division or create rifts that weren’t there. But it’s illustrative of the disconnect with this team, which is starting to seep into these playoff performances. It’s not that Vogel and the players don’t care; it might just be that they genuinely don’t know how to fix what ails a group that everyone knows has fallen short of expectations, and that they disagree on how to go about it.

“We’re human beings, everything’s not gonna be perfect,” Beal said. “But we work through it. I think we’ve been a lot better than what we have been, for sure. I think just in terms of just working it out, talking it out, just holding everybody accountable. I think that’s the biggest thing. Once we do that, we know we can snap out of it, but nobody’s gonna do it but us.”

How do the Suns fix this?

There will be more time this week to dive into the Xs and Os of what went wrong for the Suns in Game 2. Vogel said they didn’t sustain their process from the first half and had too many lost possessions where they were disorganized or turned the ball over because of Minnesota’s pressure, while Beal mentioned the Wolves’ physicality taking them out of their sets.

But either way, the Suns executed well on both ends in the first half before things completely spiraled in the second half. It’s worth wondering why Phoenix couldn’t sustain that level of execution as soon as Minnesota started building any kind of momentum.

“We lost focus,” Vogel answered.

But how, though?

“Yeah, first time being together, okay?” Vogel said. “Not handling our adversity in that second half.”

Ah, well, okay then. Anyone else have any thoughts on how the Suns can actually get through adversity next time?

“Communication,” Booker said. “Just talking to each other and holding each other accountable. I’ve been saying it, we’re all trying to fight out there, and so far in the series, once it’s turned to shit, we’ve kind of separated instead of being together. And that’s everybody top to bottom. It’s something we gotta figure it out.”

So how does this locker room figure that out, exactly?

“Keep challenging each other, but stay connected,” Vogel said. “There’s a lot of love in that locker room with that team, and we’ve gotta make sure that we can challenge each other, listen to one another and remain connected, and that’s where we’re at.”

Reading between the lines, it sounds like this team is united in its desire to win but divided by fundamental differences of opinion on how to do so. And in front of a hostile crowd rooting on their demise, that division became more glaring.

“These 20,000 here ain’t gonna cheer for us and they’re not gonna feel sorry for us,” Beal said. “They started screaming ‘Wolves in 4,’ so you could tell their energy. It’s up to us to go out and get it done, and making sure that we’re on the same page collectively moving forward. And granted, we got two days to get it right. But they’re not gonna stop. They’re gonna continue to be aggressive, continue to push the envelope the way they have, and we have to respond. We haven’t responded yet.”

Finding a response is easier in front of your home crowd, but even Suns fans have become wary of trusting this team for more than one or two weeks at a time. Every time it feels like they’ve turned a corner, there comes a baffling loss to a shorthanded opponent, a game riddled with careless turnovers, or a result that has fans questioning why they care so much.

And yet, every time there’s a disheartening stretch, Phoenix finds a way to bounce back with the type of performance that makes it impossible to close the door on them entirely. For all the hate-watchers littering Suns Twitter with comments about giving up on this team, they’re all still watching.

The amount of vitriol for this disappointing Suns season has become toxic, and it weighs on everyone involved. It’s probably the reason Booker and Durant’s message to the fanbase after Game 2 was more like a plea.

“Don’t count us out,” Booker said. “It’s a series for a reason. I don’t think any road team’s won so far. I know that doesn’t have anything to do with us, but it’s just the situation that it is.”

“Y’all can’t give up on us right now,” Durant added. “Shit, we need it more than anything. I know it’s been a disappointing last couple of games, even the season too for our fans, but we need you more than ever now coming back home for Game 3.”

Staring down an 0-2 deficit against a 56-win Timberwolves team, the Suns are running out of time to prove they can handle adversity in a playoff setting. They’re running out of time to give this fanbase reason to believe again, and above all else, they’re running out of time to save their season.

“We got a great team, and we’ve shown that throughout stretches,” Vogel said. “We’ve had our bumps in the road, as you would expect with a group that’s put together in year one. It hasn’t been an easy run for us, but through those bumps in the road, we’ve responded and gotten better from that, and we’ve played some of our best basketball down the stretch. And our first time going through the playoffs, more adversity. We’ll handle it, and we’ll get better from it. So I’m very confident in what our game’s gonna look like in Game 3 and Game 4.”

Here’s hoping the Suns still share that confidence and finally get on the same page long enough to prove it.