Phoenix Suns Breakdown: The Defense Rests

After starting out the season 14-3, the Phoenix Suns are in freefall, losing 16 of their last 27 games after a 115-104 home stinker to Chicago.

After Terry Porter was canned and Alvin Gentry was hired as head coach during the middle of last season, the Suns renewed their commitment to playing the fast-tempo offense stylized by Mike D’Antoni. The philosophy has brought the Suns more offensive harmony, but their defense is just as bad as ever.

As always, the Suns offensive brilliance and defensive malfeasance starts with Steve Nash. The Bulls usually initiated their offense with a high middle screen. The big defending the screen would make a cursory show allowing Nash to go under and recover to the ball. But Nash, even in going under the screens, had trouble fighting through and getting back to his man. As a result, Derrick Rose was afforded a small fortune of wide open jump shots.

On individual assignments with Rose, Nash was simply too small to offer any resistance, and his lack of a defensive first step allowed Rose and Hinrich to beat him at will. Despite being an average offensive team, the Bulls were able to set up everything they wanted to do against their compliant opponents.

Not that the rest of the team is any better. Grant Hill was torched by Luol Deng’s rangy jumpers.

Amar’e Stoudemire executed numerous poor defensive rotations and doesn’t play defense until his man has the ball.

Goran Dragic, Leandro Barbosa, and Jason Richardson can’t guard their lunch money.

Channing Fry was posted for profit by Joakim Noah.

Robin Lopez is too stiff to provide much defensive resistance and was outworked on the boards by Joakim Noah, though he is also a sturdier presence than Channing Frye.

The only semi-dependable defender in the Suns’ rotation is Jared Dudley who closes out well, has quick hands, always hustles, and covers a lot of ground.

The Suns desperately tried to trap Rose’s screens but Rose would string the trap out, find Noah at the free throw line, and watch as Chicago had a 4-3 numbers advantage. The Suns also crashed everybody to the offensive glass—19 offensive rebounds—at the expense of not getting back in transition. Phoenix was carved up by Chicago’s speed and creativity on the break.

Phoenix also tried to employ a shoddy zone, but after a few minutes of uncertainty, they backcut through the middle of the paint generated layups and three-point shooting blasted the zone to smithereens.

In sum, the Suns allowed the Bulls to shoot over 50 percent from the floor, 54 percent in effective field goal percentage, and commit only seven turnovers.

With a defense that porous, the Suns offense has to be clicking on all cylinders to outscore their opponents.

However, Steve Nash was rendered mortal—4-14 FG, 7 AST, 5 TO, 8 PTS—by Kirk Hinrich’s pitbull defense.

Hinrich jammed Nash on outlet passes forcing Nash to come back to the ball. Then, Hinrich would pressure Nash lightly so that the Suns weren’t able to simply zip into their offense.

Once the Suns were in the halfcourt, Hinrich would superglue himself to Nash, with ample help from Chicago’s bigs cutting off driving lanes, and the weak side defense rotated over to cover Phoenix’ strong side safety valve.

That Nash being so badly outplayed by Rose was bad enough—that Nash is the Sun of Phoenix’ solar system made his poor performance catastrophic.

Grant Hill plugged his corner threes and a had a sweet dunk in transition—6-15 FG, 3-5 3FG, 17 PTS—but is better off finishing plays made by others than creating his own offense.

Amare Stoudemire came to play—8-15 FG, 7-10 FT, 23 PTS—but most of his points came off cookies by Nash or by blasting away overmatched rookie Taj Gibson.

Leandro Barbosa is in a perpetual state of playing out of control—2-7 FG, 2 AST, 0 TO, 5 PTS. He forced early shots, needless assaults on the rim, and when he puts his head down, he doesn’t give the ball up. And the slower the pace of the game, the less effective his recklessness becomes.

Robin Lopez has a soft touch and can barrel his way to the paint on screen/rolls and finish with contact—3-4 FG, 3-4 FT, 9 PTS.

Jason Richardson believes every shot he takes is a good one and plays with no discretion—6-17 FG, 0-5 3FG, 3 AST, 1 TO, 12 PTS.

Goran Dragic—2-8 FT, 2 AST, 1TO, 5 PTS—forced a shot, couldn’t get separation off the dribble, couldn’t finish, and didn’t look like anything more than a generic backup point guard.

Jared Dudley is a terrific three point shooter—2-2 3FG, 9 PTS—but three of his attempts at the basket were blocked.

Channing Frye can also fill it up from outside—4-7 3 FG, 16 PTS—but he missed a layup and couldn’t back down Hinrich in the post after a switch, resulting in a badly missed hook.

Tally it all up and the Suns effective field goal percentage was under 45 percent, a number not good enough to compensate for their horrendous defense.

The situation goes back to the events of last season. Many believed the Suns struggles were due to a defensive philosophy implemented by Terry Porter but not endorsed by the players. Others believed that Shaquille O’Neal was the scapegoat for Phoenix’ struggles.

This year, Shaq is gone, Porter is gone, and the Suns are as committed to playing as free-wheeling a style of basketball as ever. Like last season, the players don’t want to defend, only this year they aren’t held accountable.

So after their flash in the pan start to this season, the Suns are just as lost as they were last season. If they aren’t going to adapt, and if they aren’t going to get overwhelming offensive performances from the majority of their players, they’re not going to consistently win.

At this rate, the rest of the Western Conference piranha will eat Phoenix alive.