PHOENIX — While a lot of what the Phoenix Suns have accomplished thus far has been about making up for limitations, it’s a much taller wall to climb without Devin Booker (right ankle sprain) and Jalen Green (right hamstring tightness), an insurmountable one in Sunday’s 111-102 loss to the Miami Heat.
How much Phoenix’s offense is affected in this state with an additionally bad matchup in town was a challenging start to however long the Suns will be missing their two primary ball-handlers.
Phoenix lost in Miami two weeks prior, thanks in large part to its struggles as on-ball defenders against a drive-heavy team with size. That reared its head again in that way and others.
Miami entered the night averaging an absurd 18.6 offensive rebounds per game in its last five contests, by far the most leaguewide, including 26 the night prior and 20-plus in three of those five games..
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Offensive rebounds were 21-18 Suns and second-chance points were split at 19 apiece, so Phoenix was able to push, but it’s an advantage it is used to having in the margins that becomes even more important when shorthanded. In regards to the size on drives, the Heat shot 75% at the rim compared to Phoenix’s 50%, per Cleaning the Glass.
Suns guard Dillon Brooks called it a “subpar” effort to correct some of what didn’t go Phoenix’s way in Miami.
“They just do it with their length and they go,” Suns head coach Jordan Ott said of the Heat. “Kind of what we do.”
The Suns didn’t shoot well enough from 3 to make up for that, and it wasn’t just a “make-or-miss'”evening. A 7-of-35 (20%) performance on 3s looked replicable to some extent.
A large factor inside career-year seasons for so many Suns players is how empowered they are offensively. There is almost no team in the league that has more of a team-wide green light. That mainly comes down to 3-point shooting but also aggression off the dribble.
Where it can be particularly damaging, though, is when those shots aren’t falling. These are the early-clock 3s, as well as the ones that some of the best shooters will take that Phoenix refers to as “4-pointers,” and some more pull-ups than usual too. Misses on those create such an easier flow for the opposing offense to get into, especially just a few seconds into the shot clock. With how downhill Miami plays, it’s even more problematic.
“When they don’t go in people say something about it — it’s pretty typical. … I think you gotta get a shot up,” Ott said of those 3s. “We’d obviously love to get higher quality shots, we’d love to get to the rim every single possession if you could (but) that’s not what we have.”
Grayson Allen (1-for-11 from deep) and Royce O’Neale (0-for-7) could not get those 3s to go down, or the few clean ones.
And the Suns still need to take those. Because even though roughly half of the attempts in the first half were looks coaches from a previous generation would label as a “bad shot,” it’s necessary in order for Phoenix to reach a feasible volume from 3 without the constant flow coming out of the funnel of Booker’s creation.
“He’s able to create that first domino so many times and make the right play. … Without him out there and their ability to switch really affected us,” Ott said of Booker’s absence.
It’s just damning when they don’t go in, as Ott alluded to.
“I think that’s the way we have to score without Book, without his paint presence,” Ott said.
All of that was the recipe to a game that Miami mostly controlled that never got out of hand until late. It wasn’t until a 16-6 start to the first five minutes of the fourth quarter that gave Miami its biggest lead of 15. That’s when we saw a rare glimpse of small-ball, which Ott has only turned to in desperation this season. No late rally we’ve come to know materialized.
Thirteen assists was only the third time this season the Suns have failed to crack at least 19.
Miami deserves a ton of credit for bringing the required energy to win this game on the second game of a back-to-back at the end of a five-game road trip. It didn’t get into town until 4:30 a.m. due to travel issues, and took care of the ball to split points off turnovers 15-15, at one point having only four turnovers in the late third quarter.
Missing Booker and Green puts more stress on the slot machine spin Phoenix experiences with Dillon Brooks, who was remarkably consistent as a shot-maker and producer offensively before hitting a major slump over the last four games entering Sunday.
The slot machine actually hit on Sunday in the form of 26 points on 11-of-23 shooting with two assists. What hurts, however, is that Brooks is not someone who is going to put pressure on the rim or get involved via actions that attack an entire team defense. Even when the shots are going down, it’s still not going to do much to spark others.
He often operates in individual spaces, ones that not only have major variance but won’t do anything in terms of contributing to the momentum of the offense. Brooks is a connective playmaker, meaning the majority of his setups as a passer come when the ball rotates his way or in transition when a defense is not set. When watching back all 66 of his assists coming into Sunday, only 13 of those came in half-court opportunities when he was the focal point of the possession.
Booker has had a re-evaluation period set of one week. What we can draw from this is that it is not a day-to-day injury and that he will miss at least a week. At the end of that week, which would add up to at least four missed games (or five if he’s also absent for the game exactly a week out), Phoenix could either establish one more week of re-evaluation or have Booker more on the day-to-day cycle that it appears Green is on.
With that, Green earning a questionable designation before getting ruled out was an encouraging sign, but his two returns from the injury have indicated how fragile his hamstring is. Ott confirmed pregame that an MRI came back clean and Green did some level of workout on Sunday morning. All indications are that Green will simply have some amount of re-injury risk once he comes back, and that Phoenix will just have to hope he can build up that hamstring in a few games without another tweak once the threshold for his return is reached once more.
Miami had its own health problems, missing Tyler Herro (ribs), Davion Mitchell (shoulder) and Kel’el Ware (hamstring).
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