Following Saturday’s third game in nine days against the Houston Rockets, the Phoenix Suns will have 22 games remaining on their schedule.
Thirteen face the NBA’s best of the best, a group of seven teams who are all at least 17 games above.500 heading into Friday’s games.
Phoenix has two games left against the Boston Celtics (46-12), Cleveland Cavaliers (38-20), Denver Nuggets (41-19), Los Angeles Clippers (37-20), Minnesota Timberwolves (42-17), and Oklahoma City Thunder (41-18), with one more game against the Milwaukee Bucks (39-21).
The other nine games feature the four opponents mentioned previously.500. It’s a grueling stretch run to the finish of the season, and it comes at a time when Phoenix is trying to avoid the play-in tournament.
Currently ranked fifth in the Western Conference, the Suns (35-24) will compete with the 35-25 New Orleans Pelicans, 34-25 Dallas Mavericks, 33-25 Sacramento Kings, 33-28 Los Angeles Lakers, and 31-27 Golden State Warriors. The Lakers, Mavericks, and Warriors are all now in excellent form. Since dropping five games in a row in early November, the Pelicans have been rock solid, with only four losing streaks in total. Sacramento is the lone club with some little unpredictability right now.
How Phoenix compares to the NBA’s actual title contenders will not only tell us how prepared it is for the postseason, but it will also likely determine whether it avoids the tournament or not.
“I think that’s how it should be,” Suns guard Devin Booker said Thursday. “You want to play these games late in the season [against] teams that you might see and already kind of get in the flow of ramping it up and just getting a taste of what the playoffs is gonna feel like.”
There are two extremely difficult sections on the schedule. Oklahoma City will visit on Sunday, followed by Denver, the Toronto Raptors, Boston, Cleveland, and Boston. And the final ten games of the season are in Denver, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Cleveland, Minnesota, New Orleans, a Clippers back-to-back, Sacramento, and Minnesota again.
Sunday’s Thunder game will be a good test to see how prepared the Suns are for this. Obviously, Bradley Beal’s health (left hamstring injury management) hovers over not only that game, but the whole regular season. The Suns need him. Now. The good news for them is that he’s labeled as probable for Saturday.
This season, OKC has been everything you’d expect from an elite basketball club. The Thunder are the only club in the top five in both offensive and defensive ratings, aside from Boston (first and second, respectively).
They are led by MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and run extremely efficiently. Gilgeous-Alexander (31.2 points per game), Jalen Williams (19.3 PPG), and Chet Holmgren (17.2 PPG) all shoot at 54% from the field.
All of OKC’s perimeter shooters are snipers, with the exception of Josh Giddey (32.1 3P%), helping the team top the NBA in 3-point percentage (39.6%) and free throw percentage (83.2%). The Thunder have seven players who try at least 2.5 three-pointers per game, with Giddey being the only one below 39%.
General manager Sam Presti did it again, constructing a ball-handling juggernaut built on basketball IQ, playmaking, and off-the-dribble mobility. Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams are both excellent offensive leaders, and they are not even the team’s best providers. That’s Giddey. Holmgren, who stands 7 feet 1 inches tall, can also dribble. Cason Wallace, a first-round choice, is currently an excellent 3-and-D supporting guard and will become one in the future. OKC also welcomed veteran Gordon Hayward to the buyout market, who fits in perfectly with the team’s style of play.
It’s what modern basketball is all about, and the Thunder were ahead of the pack.
The only reason OKC isn’t regarded one of the title contenders is a lack of experience. Gilgeous-Alexander and Luguentz Dort are the only holdovers from the playoff rotation during Chris Paul’s year on the bubble. Gilgeous-Alexander (25 years old) and Dort (24) are also considered elder statesmen. Williams (22), Holmgren (21), Giddey (21), and Wallace (20) are all puppies.
To compare it to the 2021 Suns, who were postseason kids in their own right, this squad lacks Jae Crowder and Paul with the exception of Hayward, who was recently acquired.
However, the Thunder have a legitimate shot at making the Finals this season. They are that talented and work as a team. It is a preview of what the Suns can expect in the next six weeks.