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5 keys for the Suns to sustain success with their Big 3

© Kiyoshi Mio-USA TODAY Sports

Tonight, the Phoenix Suns (20-18) have a golden opportunity to build on their Big 3’s best performance of the season in the team’s 127-109 victory over the Lakers Thursday.

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The Suns will face the Portland Trail Blazers (10-28), who have been blown out by 20+ points in their last three games during a road trip in which they went 1-6. The worst of these games was a 62-point loss to the Oklahoma city Thunder on Thursday.

Then, Phoenix’s schedule gets quite difficult. They will play the Sacramento Kings (23-15) at home Tuesday, then travel to play the New Orleans Pelicans (24-16) Friday and host the Indiana Pacers (23-15) at home next Sunday. After tonight, the Suns play nine more times this month and seven of these matchups will be against teams at least three games over .500.

With a lot of competition in the West, and the Suns finally starting to be healthy, there is no better time to stack up wins than right now, even with this difficult schedule.

The Suns are 3-4 in the seven games the team’s Big 3 of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal have played together. Everything looked like it finally came together after months of waiting against the Lakers. Phoenix’s star trio combined for 86 points and 14 assists total in this matchup. Beal’s season-high 37 points was more than what LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Austin Reaves combined for (36). This stellar performance came just one game after the Clippers blew out the Suns 138-111 Monday night.

So what positives did Durant, Booker, Beal and coach Frank Vogel point out from this performance? What general observations and stats can tell the most about the team with the Big 3 all healthy?

Here are five keys for the Suns to sustain success with their Big 3:

1. Consistency 

Vogel summed up the Thursday’s performance in a simple, but fitting statement that has even held true after losses.

“We know it’s gonna take take time,” Vogel said. “One win doesn’t mean we’re there, but it was definitely a positive step in the right direction.”

Booker had a similar sentiment.

“We have a lot to work on, but I think tonight was a good step forward,” Booker said.

Beal wasn’t too over-reactionary to the Suns win either

“For sure (it’s an example of what we can be),” Beal said. “It’s another small sample size of it, granted we played really well. Things were more or less kind of everything went our way tonight, but we still got to be a little bit better in the fourth (quarter), closing out on defense and things of that nature. 100% we can build off of this in a lot of positive ways, just the way the ball was moving, the energy in it, and just our collective effort on defense … It was a good collective night tonight, we hopefully just keep building on it.”

Durant echoed these comments while bringing up a key point: staying consistent.

“When you put some good stuff on film, the hardest part about the NBA is being consistent as a basketball player,” Durant said. “So yeah, we see that stuff on film and we want to try to emulate that as much as possible, but it’s easier said than done. But it’s good to put that stuff on film, so we can understand what’s our best and what it looks like.”

Even after the Clippers’ loss, Vogel and Booker both said they are remaining confident in this team and that showed against the Lakers.

The three stars have now shared the floor for 127 minutes together. They are a +45 in those minutes with a 123.6 offensive rating and a +15.4 net rating.

The Suns have had a stretch where they won seven straight and another streak when they won five out of six contests this season, yet their record stands at 20-18.

That is just their overall play, but it is reflective of how everything has gone this season. Diving into single games, the biggest problem has been putting together full 48-minute games, specifically in the fourth quarter. 

Their net rating, which is calculated by subtracting a team’s defensive rating from their offensive rating (simply, a team’s point differential per 100 possessions), reflects this.

The Suns have a net rating of -16.8 in the fourth quarter, which is the lowest in NBA.com’s database dating back to 1996-97. They are dead last in the NBA in a ton of other areas in the fourth, including points, field-goal percentage, three-point percentage, rebounds, assists and point differential. 

In other quarters, this is how the Suns’ net rating looks:

Their fourth quarter struggles did not matter against the Lakers, who still outscored Phoenix 31-22 in the final period, as the Suns were up 27 to end the third quarter.

So how soon can the Suns prove that the Big 3 solve this problem and take what has worked from other quarters into closing time? They will not go anywhere this season if they continue to struggle late in games.

2. Defense

Kevin Durant scored the fewest points of the Suns’ Big 3 against the Lakers, finishing with 18, while Booker had 31 alongside Beal’s 37.

But, Durant also held LeBron James to his lowest scoring total since Nov. 2021 of 10 points on 27% shooting, the first time James has shot under 30% in a game this season. KD also tied his season high with three steals.

Durant’s effort defensively can serve as an example for just how good this team can be when their defense leads to offense.

As a team, the Suns have a defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions) of 115.4, which is 16th in the NBA. With the Big 3 on the floor, they have a defensive rating of 108.2. The highest team defensive rating in the league is the Minnesota Timberwolves at 108.3.

“We’ve had games where it’s clicking for us on the offensive side of the ball,” Durant said after the Lakers game. “But I think defensively when we talking to each other and understanding where we all need to be on the defensive side of the ball, then the offense becomes easier. I just feel like we got to be on a string more and have a little bit more togetherness on the defensive side of the ball and that will feed into our offense.”

Devin Booker knew the Suns needed to clean up their defense after the loss to the Clippers, and Durant spearheaded the team’s overall great performance on that side of the ball.

3. Three-Point Shooting

The first thing that Vogel brought up when asked about Beal’s season-high performance was how many threes he attempted, and made.

“He shot 10 threes and made eight. That’s a good percentage,” Vogel said. “I know he’s capable of taking 10 threes in the game now, and I’m gonna hold him to that.”

The Suns feature 10 players on their roster who shot over 35% from three last season. However, Phoenix is 26th in the NBA at 11.8 three-point makes per game. They are 27th in the NBA at 31.8 attempts per game. Overall, they went 14-of-39 (35.9%) from deep against the Lakers.

“We have been a reluctant three-point shooting team with great shooters,” Vogel said. “And that’s something we’re trying to just remind our guys how good of shooters they are and be aggressive. And from that standpoint, I thought the whole game was a positive step in the direction of how we want to play offensively with those three guys (Beal, Durant and Booker) being aggressive.”

Beal said he has been working on shooting more threes.

“I’m becoming good with it,” Beal said. “That’s something that our staff has been preaching all year, something that I’ve been trying to get myself to do the last probably five years of my career: to shoot at least eight to 10 threes a game. (I’m) just really working on it. I got my trainer, Drew, back in town we worked for a few days and got it back feeling right. Tonight, I was just confident and just didn’t think about it leaving my hands, just letting it flow.”

Grayson Allen and Eric Gordon, who have been labeled by the player’s as the team’s “snipers” this year, really struggled against the Lakers despite Beal’s three point outburst. Allen went 1-of-6 from three, while Gordon went 1-of-9.

Beal responded to their poor performances, saying they just need to continue to let it fly.

The Suns have won four of the five games in which they attempted their highest three point totals on the season. The Lakers’ game ranked fourth on the season for their highest three-point attempts.

Kevin Durant, who went 2-of-5 in the game from three, shared his insight on the team needing to shoot more threes.

“It’s easier said than done,” Durant said. “I feel like coach has a good grasp on who we are as a team. I feel like we turned down a lot of threes to try to drive and make the extra pass to find a more open three. So, sometimes you shoot over guys, and I think that’s what we did more than night. (Eric Gordon) got up nine of them, I felt like all of them look good, leaving his hands, and then Brad just got it going in as well. So, if we stretch the floor out with our three point shot, I think it’ll open up everything else inside the three-point line.”

Vogel complimented Devin Booker for setting the tone on three-point attempts early in the game. Booker had 16 points in the first quarter and attempted for threes, only making one of them, but it is clear the team simply just wants to attempt threes because they know the importance of three-point shooting in today’s game.

“I think it should be forced, especially early in games,” Booker said of the team’s three-point shooting. “We have such good shooters on the team that I think even shooting them make or miss, it slowly just loosens up those mid range shots because people know there’s threats out there at deep spacing that will shoot it. It opens up the gaps for you. We have a lot of shooters, (a three-pointer) is worth the most points, and I think it’s a good shot for a lot of us.”

4. Unselfishness

All three of these players and Vogel have talked about the importance of unselfishness on the team.

The Suns are 18th in the NBA with 25.9 assists per game and had 23 assists total against the Lakers, two stats that aren’t going to push them over the hump. A stat worth noting is that Phoenix is 7-1 when it has over 30 assists, so it is important they learn how share the ball with and alongside the Big 3.

That being said, Vogel once again expressed just how beneficial it has to have three stars that are unselfish after the win over the Lakers.

“There’s no doubt, they’re all three very selfless basketball players,” Vogel said. “In particular, when help is early and when double teams come, they do not try to force, but they’re going to be aggressive looking to score and put pressure on defenses to be early to help or to create other teams, like we saw with Book in the first half and Brad in the second half. And then they get off of it. They know they have a great deal of trust on the guys that are out there with them, and they looked good tonight.”

With no true point guard, these three players lead the Suns in assists.

Booker is in the lead with a career-high 7.7 assists per game, while Durant is second in with 5.8 assists per game. In the 14 games Beal has played in, he has averaged 3.8 assists per game.

5. Patience/Health

Overall, Suns’ fans just have to stay patient with this team and hope for them to stay healthy. The rest of the teams that have stayed healthy all season have had at least over 35 games to gel together, while the Suns have only had seven with their three core players.

All three of these players are veterans that have seen every type of defense, but are still figuring it out together.

So, there will be some games where they can’t figure it out that one night, but could come back the next game and flat out dominate, as they showed last week.

That is why consistency is the most important thing with this group.

If the stars can stay healthy, they can wait for all of their other problems to fall in line and correct themselves the more games they play together.

Kevin Durant wanted, and excelled, at challenge of guarding LeBron James

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Brendan Mau is a senior writer covering the Phoenix Suns and more for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on X via @Brendan_Mau

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