When it comes to the closing stretch of the season, the Phoenix Suns’ last two games (and losses) will be the ones to think about if they finish one or two back of a playoff spot.
Monday’s 120-112 defeat at the hands of the Boston Celtics went from a flimsy effort to a spectacular one, before retaking that initial form in the last few minutes.
Like Friday’s loss in Toronto, the offense melted down late.
In the fourth quarter, Phoenix’s defense went two gears higher than it previously had on the night, fueled by outstanding performances from reserves Haywood Highsmith and Jordan Goodwin.
The Suns scrapped through a whole lot, showing their usual heaps of resiliency to lead by three with three minutes left.
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After Devin Booker was sensational to that point, he couldn’t finish it off, just like Friday. He got picked from behind by Boston’s Jaylen Brown for a Celtics runout, and then the Suns’ next possession died out to force Oso Ighodaro to try a drive-and-kick. Boston grabbed the miss that forced and scored on an offensive rebound off the transition opportunity.
Booker then tried to sprint around the double team that was coming after a screen arrived, but he never got clear of it and was trapped into a jump ball. Phoenix won it but Booker was forced to take a bad shot late in the clock.
Brown then drove through to the rim to get free throws, and Booker was finally able to get to the paint, only for his kickout pass to not yield an open shot and force up another prayer with the shot clock expiring.
Brown got another downhill bucket and Booker got called for a charge. The 8-0 Celtics run had Boston up five with under a minute to go, enough to seal it.
The defeat to the Raptors was after the Suns largely controlled the game, while Monday was doing enough to hang around before reaching overdrive to potentially steal it. There’s an argument for either form of a loss being worse than the other.
From a little under five minutes to go in the first half to nearly five minutes into the second half, Booker scored all 23 of the Suns’ points before Jalen Green got a pair of FTs, and one more Booker drive made it 25 points for him in 9:57 of gametime. Phoenix went from down two to down five.
Khaman Maluach’s free throws a few minutes later made him the first Sun outside of Booker and Green to score in over a full quarter.
Booker finished with 40 points (15-of-24). It was his fifth time scoring 35-plus in Boston, tied for the most from a visiting player since he entered the league in 2015, per Stathead.
He did his best, at least on that end, to help neutralize a stellar Celtics start offensively.
Boston assisted its first 11 baskets and 18 of its 21 total in the first half.
A bit of that had to do with good shot-making but this is an “it takes two to tango” situation where a certain level of defensive ineptitude has to be present as well for an assist rate to be that high.
Phoenix is currently fully in this zone of going between impactful team defensive possessions and brainfarts, which just cancel each other out. That’s before accounting for the Suns’ generally mediocre perimeter defense, so this is another way of saying their margin for error is too thin to not be communicating on switches or lollygagging back in transition and off the ball.
As the Suns showed in the fourth quarter, they still have the capability to reach great heights defensively. But Phoenix was seventh in defense prior to Feb. 1, and since then entering play on Monday, it was 18th. That is not going to cut it for the offensive struggles this group has.
The Celtics ended up 17-of-40 (43%) from deep while the Suns were 13-of-40 (32%).
This was the third straight game we’ve seen both Booker and Green be very productive in, uncoincidentally via an opposition’s defensive gameplan that was fine with giving them pull-up jumpers most of the evening.
The opposing big man is often in a drop for ball screens beyond the 3-point line, sometimes even as deep as the free-throw line, rolling out the red carpet for those shots. Oso Ighodaro had a career-high eight assists because of that. Booker saw more advanced pressure on Monday once he hit supernova, but the strategy is evident.
Booker has always been one of the best in the league at off-the-dribble shots in the midrange, while Green is shooting way above his normal clip at a figure north of 50% this season on pull-up 2s, but the pair has been equally awful on 3s. Double-teams haven’t been much of a thing, either, despite the handful of inferno performances the last two weeks.
It’s clear that opponents will live with the trade-off of that freedom for the duo to go to work, especially when taking in the fact of how it keeps the Suns away from fresh ball movement that gets the complementary pieces going.
On-ball defenders are trying to deny dribble penetration more than anything, knowing the drive-and-kick game of Booker in particular can be deadly.
Booker ended up with six assists and seven turnovers. Green had one assist and one turnover. The two have combined for 20 assists and 23 turnovers the last three games. Booker has 14 of those giveaways.
Green was 8-of-20 for 21 points and added seven rebounds.
Since Green’s return on Feb. 19, Phoenix entered play on Monday 22nd in offense and 29th in assists per game across those dozen games. The extremes of that have been on display in the last three contests, and the balance has to greatly improve, a sizable feat to try and accomplish this late in the season while still getting Green back on track.
The good news for the Suns is that they broke 25-plus assists for just the fourth time over that now 13-game sample size since Green returned to an everyday role. This was only their sixth loss when reaching that mark, now 25-6.
It all clearly affects that supporting cast. Collin Gillespie struggled once more, shooting 1-of-8 for five points, one assist and zero turnovers.
Highsmith produced 16 points in 19 minutes with four rebounds, an assist and a steal. He was magnificent.
Brown had a game-high 41 points and was 19-of-21 from the foul line.
Grayson Allen did not play in the second quarter before later returning.
His right leg landed on an opposing defender’s foot in the first quarter, a leg Allen has recently missed time for due to right knee injury management and a right ankle sprain.
This is of note with Phoenix heading to Minnesota for a back-to-back on Tuesday and having just played game No. 1 of five over seven days.
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