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Frank Vogel says Suns aren’t where Celtics are ‘yet’

© Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports

The Phoenix Suns dropped another game to the league-leading Boston Celtics last night in their second meeting in the past week.

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This time, the Suns were healthy after Devin Booker missed last Saturday’s 117-107 loss to Boston. 

However, that did not matter, as the Celtics rode a huge second half to a 127-112 victory to improve to 52-14 on the season, while Phoenix dropped to 38-28 (seventh place in the Western Conference).

Coach Frank Vogel kept it real with how his team stacks up to the Celtics.

“We’re just not quite where they are yet. And that’s they key word, yet,” Vogel said following the loss. “We’re going to keep growing, we’re going to keep getting better.”

(Interview via AZ Central’s Duane Rankin)

Boston, who leads the league is 3-pointers made and attempted, did just that against Phoenix. The Suns let up a season-high 25 3-pointers that came on 50 attempts last night. Meanwhile, Phoenix shot 11-for-31 (35.5%) from deep.

Jaylen Brown had 37 points, while Jayson Tatum scored 26 for Boston. Meanwhile, Booker led Phoenix with 23 and seven assists, Bradley Beal had 22 and seven assists, while Kevin Durant notched 20 points.

Even with the Suns having a Big 3 of their own, on paper it’s very obvious Boston is way ahead of them and really any team in the NBA right now. The Celtics now rank fifth all-time of any team in NBA history for best average margin of victory (per StatMuse).

Vogel explained how the Celtics have gotten to this point of being so good compared to the Suns.

“We’re in our first year together,” Vogel said. “(Brown and Tatum) have been together eight years or so. Their system has been in since (former Celtics coach) Ime (Udoka) was here. Obviously, (current Celtics coach) Joe (Mazzula) is doing a great job taking the mantle with it. We’re going to get where they’re at.”

Even with all of this said, but there was a very positive takeaway for the Suns. Boston entered the night as the No. 1 rebounding team in the league, yet the Suns outrebounded them 51-33 and grabbed 19 offensive rebounds. Jusuf Nurkić had 20 rebounds alone.

“(Boston’s) defensive scheme sets them up to be hurt on the glass,” Vogel said. “But also, they shot the hell out of it, so there weren’t a lot of offensive rebounds for them to get. We’re a good rebounding team when we go to the boards like we did tonight.”

Usually, if the Suns take more field goal attempts than their opponent, they’re going to win. With that being said, this has been a rarity this season because of how many turnovers the Suns have.

Last night, however, Phoenix ended up attempting 99 shots compared to 89 for Boston, just the Celtics were that good from deep to lead to a commanding victory.

All in all, with this being the last matchup between the teams in the regular season, the Suns have a lot of figuring out to do with 16 games left in the regular season.

The next time they could play Boston is the NBA Finals, but this does not appear to be a favorable matchup by any means for the Suns.

Celtics’ offensive explosion powers 127-112 victory over Suns

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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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