Suns Breakdown: Defenseless

The NBA gave basketball fans a wonderful Christmas present when the Phoenix Suns visited the LA Lakers.

Unfortunately for the Suns, they received coal for the holidays, as the Lakers emerged with a well-earned 122-115 victory.

The loss exposed a myriad of flaws which will doom the Suns if they aren’t corrected in time for the NBA’s second season.

Defense:

The Suns' interior rotations, both baseline and top to bottom, were non-existent. Whenever a Lakers guard penetrated, Amare Stoudamire would chase the ball and abandon Andrew Bynum, leading to a seemingly endless stream of Bynum dunks.

Powerful drives by Kobe Bryant, Jordan Farmar, and Trevor Ariza resulted in layups or powerhouse throw-downs, time and again.

Trevor Ariza cut without the ball from the left baseline to the basket for a baseline slammer as Grant Hill and Shawn Marion were caught in quicksand.

Phoenix had Brian Skinner and his short arms fronting the albatross-like Bynum—with the Suns' no-help defense sagging behind the play. Bynum simply caught a lob, turned, and dunked.

Skinner didn’t fare any better guarding Bynum straight up, as Bynum’s length allowed the youngster to convert his open looks with the greatest of ease.

Skinner, Stoudamire, Marion, and Boris Diaw had no inclinations to properly rotate down low to prevent driving and passing lanes.

Hill was also slow to react on defense—though one courageous rotation on a Trevor Ariza dunk which should’ve been resulted in a charging foul was blown by the refs.

Aside from a few shows by Brian Skinner, the Suns had no gameplan to stop screen/rolls. Whenever a Lakers guard broke free off a screen, there was nothing but daylight between him and the basket. Not only was there no assistance from the person guarding the screener, but there were also no wings sagging down to help.

This strategy did choke off many perimeter passes that could’ve led to threes, but with so many dunks and layups converted by LA, its benefits were moot.

More incredulous is the fact that the Suns went under nearly every screen/roll and still gave up uncontested penetrations—a trend as bizarre as it is disturbing.

The Suns got precious few deflections to stir the game into the crazy helter-skelter pace they crave. In fact, the Suns also got out-athleticed by the Lakers up-tempo unit of Bynum, Odom, Ariza, Bryant, and Farmar.

Amare Stoudamire and Bryan Skinner combined for five defensive rebounds, while Bynum tallied eight offensive ones. Aside from a few early offense dunks by Amare, Bynum dominated him in every conceivable way.

Did the Suns do anything right on defense?

Steve Nash poked away a handful of dribbles, made a few successful gambles into passing lanes, and rotated nicely on a Kobe Bryant baseline drive, drawing a charge. Nash also fought around a curl and ended up blocking a Derek Fisher jumper because of his efforts.

While Nash is indeed a puny mano-a-mano defender, he is a relatively crafty team defender who wouldn’t be exploited nearly as much in a better defensive system.

For the most part, Raja Bell forced Kobe Bryant into a number of difficult shots, but Kobe had one of those days where everything he threw up was going in.

But aside from these exceptions, and a few decent defensive standoffs by Hill, Marion, and Diaw on Lamar Odom, the Suns were absolutely toasted on defense.

Offense:

While the Suns were effective whenever there were chances for early offense, their half-court offense was stagnant, especially with Nash on the bench,

Nearly all of Stoudamire’s points came in early offense, or on the rare times Bynum had to help defend a penetrating guard, allowing Stoudamire to slip behind him for a dunk. The only time Stoudamire tried to create his own shot in the final six minutes, he missed a fade-away turning left from the right box over Lamar Odom.

Boris Diaw struggled with his jumper and with finishing in traffic, and only recorded three buckets on nine shots. Leandro Barbosa was often out of control and forced a number of drives and shots en route to a three-for-nine game.

On the plus side of the ledger, the Suns newcomers played very well. Brian Skinner showed that he can at least be as effective as Kurt Thomas in knocking down every mid-range look he had. Skinner also drove to the basket for a nifty assist, and two other drives produced a foul and a turnover.

Grant Hill made masterful passes on the run, ran stride for stride with the rest of the Phoenix race cars, created his own mid-range jumpers in half-court sets, finished strong at the basket, and was totally in sync with the Suns style of play.

However, Hill was reluctant to shoot a handful of corner threes with no defenders in his immediate vicinity. And despite how comfortable he looked, the Suns shouldn’t be too confident in a 35-year old with a history of debilitating lower-body injuries getting as many minutes as he is.

For sure, the Suns will continue to race lesser teams off the court, but the Suns have had trouble in the money season against teams that can run with them—or worse, teams that can slow them down.

If the Suns want to play at their peak, they’ll need to find a legit backup point guard, and move Barbosa to shooting guard. They’ll need another gunner to punish teams for sagging on their screen/rolls.

They’ll also need more depth on their bench to give Nash and Hill more rest as the season progresses. They’ll need to develop some kind of offensive game plan for when Nash is on the bench.

In addition, Boris Diaw has outlived his usefulness, and should be traded as soon as possible.

And even with these changes, it’s hard to take the Suns seriously with Skinner and Stoudamire as their last lines of defense. But then again, even with a smarter defensive center, Mike D’Antoni doesn’t really give a damn about tightening rotations or gameplanning against screen-rolls.

The Suns will just have to hope they can race opponents to 120 points. Add the Lakers to the Spurs and Mavericks as teams that can win that sprint.