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5 keys to Suns' first-round playoff series vs. Timberwolves
The Phoenix Suns may only be a 6-seed in the 2024 NBA Playoffs, but they took care of enough business to skip the play-in and secure the most favorable first-round matchup of any lower seed in the Western Conference.
Thanks to a resounding 125-106 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday — plus some extra help from the Los Angeles Lakers, Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder — the Suns will face the Wolves in the 3-6 matchup out West, starting with Game 1 on Saturday.
Phoenix will start out on the road in this series, but it’s a matchup they should feel confident about for multiple reasons.
For starters, the Suns are 3-0 against the Timberwolves this season, and all three games were blowouts. Phoenix won the first meeting by 18 points after leading by as many as 28. They won the second matchup by 10, but were up 23 until the Wolves closed the game on a 13-0 run in the final three minutes of garbage time. And on Sunday, Phoenix led by as many as 24 before winning by 19.
Ultimately, the Suns won those games by an average point differential of +15.7 — by far the best mark any team posted against Minnesota this season, and more than double the next-closest team (the Chicago Bulls, at +7.0).
However, this Wolves team is no pushover either. They won 56 games, and would’ve been the 2-seed in a vicious Western Conference had they won on Sunday. They’re also the No. 1 defense in the NBA, by a whopping 2.2 points per 100 possessions.
As Suns fans learned firsthand back in 2022 against the Dallas Mavericks, regular-season dominance over an opponent doesn’t guarantee a damn thing come playoff time. Minnesota will be excited to host its first Game 1 in a playoff series since 2004, and nothing that happened this season — or even in the last two weeks — matters now.
“You can’t make too much of the regular-season matchups,” coach Frank Vogel told AZCentral’s Duane Rankin. “They got a lot of talent on that roster. Both sides of the ball, offensive talent and defensive talent. So it’ll be a dogfight.”
“Obviously you take some stuff away, but you don’t want to rely too much on that,” Kevin Durant added. “This team is a contending team since day one, so they’re gonna come in here with a different mindset, different intensity. The crowd’s gonna be different, the game is gonna be reffed different. So yeah, you could look at some film and some stuff you did in the regular season, but you can’t think that games are gonna be like that. You gotta get ready for a dogfight.”
The question is, how will this dogfight be decided? And what do the Suns need to do in order to capitalize on this matchup and advance? In no particular order, here are the five biggest keys to the series.
1. Contain Anthony Edwards
Modern NBA playoff series call for firepower, which is fueled by players who can get you buckets in a pinch. The Suns have three players who fit that category. With Karl-Anthony Towns coming off an injury that sidelined him for almost a month, the Wolves may only have one.
Anthony Edwards is a problem, but there’s a reason Minnesota is the league’s 17th-ranked offense. They may not have the horses to keep up, especially if Phoenix continues to do such an exemplary job against Edwards.
“He can do it all,” Vogel described. “He’s arguably the most athletic guy in the NBA, can shoot it, he can put it on the floor, really improved his passing. Play in pick-and-roll, play in the post, play off pindowns, play in the open court. There’s not a whole lot that he can’t do.”
On the season, Ant averaged 25.9 points, 5.1 assists and 3.1 turnovers per game on 46.1 percent shooting, including 35.7 percent from deep. In three Suns matchups, those numbers plummet to 14.3 points, 3.7 assists and 3.3 turnovers per game on 31 percent shooting, including 27.3 percent from deep.
This topic will earn its own breakdown later in the week, but these stats are telling: Among 29 Timberwolves opponents, Phoenix held Edwards to his third-lowest scoring average, third-lowest shooting percentage and sixth-lowest assist average.
As Sunday’s seven shot attempts showed, the Suns have done an excellent job showing Ant a crowd when he drives, playing at the level in pick-and-roll coverage and generally restricting his looks. Edwards normally averages 19.7 shot attempts per game, but against Phoenix, that number has dropped to 14.0 attempts.
“You can’t force him to do nothing, you know what I’m saying?” Durant explained. “You just gotta win the numbers game, just have more players on him, two or three guys in this area. We’re not selling out to stop him, but you show presentation like there is more help than it is, and hopefully that deters him a bit. But he’s tough. He moves so smooth and effortlessly that a lot of times, he can beat double- and triple-teams.”
Holding a guy like Edwards to 13-for-42 shooting through three matchups is no small feat, and limiting him to 11 assists with 10 turnovers is impressive too. According to Wolves coach Chris Finch, Ant’s ability to capitalize on all that defensive attention as a playmaker was one of his biggest improvements this year.
“I think just understanding how to handle and attack different defensive looks,” Finch said. “He sees a lot of different things. That’s one, and really, kinda using his potency to set up his teammates. That’s been a huge growth area.”
Against the Suns, though, it hasn’t mattered. Bradley Beal, Royce O’Neale, Grayson Allen, Devin Booker and Kevin Durant have all embraced the matchup at various times, and there’s always been enough help behind them to build a wall while still playing in the gaps to restrict passing lanes.
As a result, the Wolves have been outscored by 63 points in Edwards’ 98 minutes against Phoenix this season. If that continues, and he can’t find a way to carry Minnesota’s offense, the Timberwolves have zero chance.
“It’s gonna be a team effort,” Vogel said. “Not one guy is gonna try to slow him down. The bigs will be involved, our gap helps will be a big deal. He’s gotta see five bodies every time he touches the basketball, and just try to make everything as difficult as we can.”
2. Win the turnover battle
As the top defense in the NBA, it’s no surprise Minnesota ranks sixth in steals (7.9 per game) and 10th in points off turnovers (17.0 per game).
The Suns have struggled in this area all season long, ranking 25th in both turnovers (14.9 per game) and opponent points off turnovers (18.2 per game). Given that Phoenix’s rampant turnover problem once forced this writer to rewatch every single turnover of the season and write 2,000 words breaking them all down, one would think this had been a major issue in this matchup.
Surprisingly, it hasn’t! The Suns are only averaging 13.3 turnovers per game against Minnesota, which is notable since Phoenix finished 23-13 when they commit 13 turnovers or less. Sure, they had one game against the Wolves where they coughed it up 18 times, but even in that contest, they only gave up 12 points off those miscues.
In fact, the Suns have only surrendered 14.0 points off turnovers per game against the Wolves. They’ve made sure the live-ball turnovers that usually hurt them don’t give Minnesota — a team that ranks 29th in the NBA in fast break points — any easy opportunities in transition.
What’s more, the Suns have actually won the turnover differential in this matchup. The Wolves aren’t great with ball security either, ranking 22nd in turnovers with 14.2 per game, but Phoenix has forced them into 16.3 per game in three meetings. That’s led to an average of 24.3 points off turnovers for the Suns — the most Minnesota has surrendered to any opponent this year.
The Wolves made some sloppy, careless mistakes on Sunday, but they’ve routinely made them against this Suns defense, which aims to take Anthony Edwards away and force other guys to create.
Minnesota’s 19 first-half turnovers tied the league record for most turnovers in any half in NBA history, and if the Suns can flip the script on this pesky turnover problem, they’ll turn one of their greatest weaknesses into an unexpected advantage.
3. Turn KAT and Gobert into pigeons
The Wolves are one of the most dominant defenses the NBA has seen in recent memory. They’re anchored by a soon-to-be four-time Defensive Player of the Year in Rudy Gobert, with tenacious, long-limbed defenders like Edwards, Mike Conley, Jaden McDaniels, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Kyle Anderson on the perimeter.
But the Suns have made it look easy against this highly-vaunted defense, scoring 133 points in their first meeting — the most Minnesota surrendered all season — and another 125 on Sunday. Phoenix has accounted for two of the eight highest-scoring performances against the Wolves this year, and their 53 percent shooting is the highest average in the league against Minnesota.
So how have they done it?
Well, we’ll get into the weeds on this topic later in the week, but to simplify for now, they’ve attacked the Wolves’ dual-big lineup. And they’ve effectively turned KAT into a pigeon.
It’s not a coincidence that the two games Towns played were the two games where Phoenix’s offense was unstoppable. The Suns spread this defense open last season with Cam Johnson at the 4, and now with Booker, Beal, Allen an Durant in the starting lineup, there’s nowhere for Towns to hide.
Three games is a small sample size, but Edwards, Towns and the rest of the Wolves are painfully aware of the matchup problems at work here.
The Suns are too:
The Timberwolves are a -32 in KAT’s 60 minutes against Phoenix, and he’s recorded two of his five worst plus-minuses of the season in those two meetings. Whether it’s putting him in pick-and-roll coverage, attacking him off the dribble or forcing him to make decisions as the low man, the Suns have routinely punished him whenever he’s on the court.
For a team already lacking firepower, Minnesota will struggle to keep up offensively if they can’t keep Towns on the floor defensively.
It’s not just KAT who’s been a liability, however. Gobert, who’s one of the best rim protectors in NBA history, is no stranger to being rendered impotent in the playoffs. But the Suns have hammered that point home in three regular-season meetings, outscoring the Wolves by a staggering 68 points in Gobert’s 86 minutes of action.
Three games against Phoenix account for three of Gobert’s four worst plus/minuses of the season, and that shouldn’t be a surprise, given that the Suns are better suited to attack his drop coverage than perhaps anyone in the NBA. Phoenix doesn’t score a lot in the paint, but they don’t really need to in this matchup.
“It’s hard to do with Rudy in there,” Vogel explained. “They’re No. 1 in the league in defending the paint, and we have guys that hopefully can bring Rudy [Gobert] away from the basket with our shooting ability. And when we do that, we got rolls behind, re-drives, all those types of things.”
Again, we’ll break down some film on this later in the week, but suffice it to say that drop coverage in pick-and-rolls will be difficult to sustain when midrange snipers like Booker, KD or Beal are coming off those screens. And even when Gobert has played at the level, the Suns have burned him off the dribble for layups.
Stylistically, Phoenix will be a tough matchup for both of Minnesota’s bigs, who need to be able to stay on the floor to capitalize on their size advantage.
4. Get off to fast starts
Here’s a fun stat: The Wolves never got within single digits in a single second half against the Suns. Phoenix completely dominated all three meetings, and it always started in the first quarter:
“That’s a great formula to have,” Durant said after the win on April 5. “I know every game’s not gonna be like that. The last few were like that, but when we can hit first, that’s always a good way to start the games, and it’s a game of runs. So for us to not let them get on big runs like we got on was the key.”
Good starts are key, not only because that formula has worked well for the Suns three straight times, but in looking at the numbers, the Wolves are at their most vulnerable in those first 12 minutes. Here’s Minnesota’s point differential by quarter:
- 1st quarter: +0.9 (tied for 10th in the NBA)
- 2nd quarter: +1.4 (8th)
- 3rd quarter: +3.2 (1st)
- 4th quarter: +1.2 (2nd)
The Wolves typically get stronger as the game goes along, particularly in the third quarter, but the Suns have found success by putting them in an immediate hole and keeping them buried. A whopping 19 of Minnesota’s 26 losses this season came in games where they trailed by double digits at one point, and three of those were against Phoenix.
This series won’t be as cut and dry as the regular season, but whenever the Wolves found themselves down by 10 or more, they dropped from a 56-win team to a 37-win squad. That’s more than enough incentive for the Suns to put pressure on the higher seed right from the opening tip and avoid those potential fourth-quarter woes.
5. Maintain that shot profile, Suns
A few more barometer stats: The Suns are 31-7 this season when they beat or tie their opponent in 3-point makes, and they’re 26-13 when they attempt at least 33 triples. However, they’re only 15-12 when they attempt more 3s than their opponent…compared to 34-21 when they don’t.
So basically, the Suns want to take around 33 triples, and making more 3s than their opponent always helps, but unless they’re wide open, they don’t need to be chucking 40-50 3s against this Wolves team.
The reason for that is something we already covered: Minnesota’s defense is designed to take away the 3-point line and the paint. It’s not a coincidence the Wolves rank second in the NBA in opponent points in the paint, fourth in opponent 3-point attempts and seventh in opponent 3-point percentage.
But despite the numbers typically encouraging a higher output of shots from those two areas, the Suns have thrived by being absurdly efficient to make up for lower volume.
According to NBA.com, Phoenix has averaged the eighth-fewest shot attempts from inside the restricted area against the Wolves, but they’ve shot the fourth-highest percentage on those looks. And while Minnesota has held the Suns to 28.7 3-point attempts per game — nearly 6 fewer attempts than their average! — they’re shooting a blistering 48.8 percent on those long-range attempts.
That staggering efficiency at the rim and from beyond the arc has made a huge impact, but knocking down shots from the midrange is the backbreaker that opens up the rest of the floor. The Suns have taken the fourth-most midrange shots against Minnesota, shooting an impressive 45.5 percent on those looks.
“Everyone makes a lot about forcing guys into the midrange these days, make a big deal about it, but it’s not just about that; it’s affecting the rhythm and the way that guys want to play,” Finch explained before the April 5 matchup. “So for these guys, forcing them there is not enough. You’ve gotta close the space that they’re able to operate in, make things as hard as possible, and shot contests are gonna be huge.”
Generating clean looks at the rim and from 3-point range is key, but the Suns shouldn’t drastically alter their approach. If anything, this is a series that begs for these midrange assassins to do their thing — especially if their defense can continue to limit a team that’s ranked third in 3-point percentage (38.7 percent) to the atrocious shooting numbers they’ve posted against Phoenix (29.3 percent).
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