Suns win second straight to start favorable part of schedule

On By Littum

PHOENIX — In a stretch of the schedule that the Phoenix Suns should take advantage of, they got off to a nice enough start, winning 116-109 over the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday.

Friday’s win against the Utah Jazz began a streak of four straight games against clubs below .500. After five games against some of the better teams in the West beginning Dec. 23, the Suns will play eight of their next nine games against Eastern Conference foes, and a pair of contests with the 14-13 Atlanta Hawks represent only those who have a group above 0.500. The lone matchup with a colleague in the West is 5-19 Utah.

From there, the path traveled becomes much more tenuous. With the Suns just 14-11, they can’t afford to drop more than a few of those 13 games.

In an attempt on Sunday, the Suns never really held a tight game long enough to blow it open, the third-quarter woes reared their head immediately via an 11-0 Portland run at the start of the period, fueled by two Jusuf Nurkic- turnovers and a blocked shot attempt that could have counted a third. Phoenix avoided letting the game get off track and got its lead back to four at the end of the quarter before an 18-6 start to the final frame pretty much wrapped things up. Nurkic was part of the positive push back to control.

Good teams will play a dozen games like this against inferior opponents so it can linger before effortlessly slipping it back to Earth towards the end of the contest. It didn’t sit particularly well after how poorly the Suns played at the end of their road trip, and for the second straight time against Portland, they let them back into the game late.

Devin Booker delivered a solid 28 points on 7-of-14 shooting, while the rare off night for Kevin Durant was here with 9-of-23 for 20 points. Booker’s looked like himself in back-to-back wins.

At 25 games, the Suns certainly have the horses in their supporting cast to make a deep postseason run. Great production continues to pour in from the likes of Tyus Jones (19 points), Royce O’Neale (13) and others.

This has been a huge scoring boom from that duo.

In Jones’ first six seasons, he scored 15-plus points in 15 total games, per Stathead. That increased to 10 in his seventh season alone before doing it 18 times each of the last two years. Now in Year 10, Jones has reached at least 15 points on 10 different occasions in just 25 games.

For O’Neale, it’s a similar rise. He hit 15-plus points across 16 games in his first five seasons before tallying 17 in the last two years. He came in just short of 15 on Sunday, but he’s on an eight game streak in just 25 games.

“They understand that teams are going to put a strain on me, Kev and Brad, and they’re making them pay for it,” Booker said of the two. “This is what we have been working with every day in practice. We’re talking about that distance.”

The two are shooting the absolute cover of the ball from deep recently. Over the last 10 games, O’Neale’s at 52.8% (37-for-70) and Jones is sitting at 54.5% (30-for-55).

Jones, in particular, navigates the floor like someone who has truly picked up the rhythm of that room.

“With the gravity that KD, Book and (and) Brad create, everybody else gets open looks,” Jones said. “So just be ready to fire them and knock them down.”

Suns’ Bradley Beal out with latest injury

Bradley Beal was out for his second straight game because of swelling in his right knee that appeared between Thursday night and Friday morning, prior to Friday’s win. Head coach Mike Budeholzer said before Sunday’s game that the injury “kind of came out of nowhere” but there is no structural damage and the Suns hope with a few days off until Thursday that the swelling will reduce and Beal will be in order.

“He works. I saw him practice today, so you just have to keep at it,” Booker said of Beal. “He’s a pro, he’s been at it a long time.”

After recently passing the quarter mark of the regular season, Beal has now had seven different injuries pop up. He has played in 15 of the Suns’ 25 games.

Beal missed two games with his right elbow, five with a left calf problem, one with a left ankle sprain and now two with the right knee. That doesn’t include a night against Sacramento where he was in severe pain after his left knee was rolled up and an ankle injury he can’t even remember adjusting because of the pain in his knee, and he also sprained his right ankle on December 5. Three games later he was out because of the knee in that leg.

Last season it was his back, right ankle (twice), a broken nose, left hamstring and right finger.

At some point, this one being 18 months with Beal, the Suns have to consider changing the way Beal is used to keep him. He’s under contract for two more seasons beyond this year, and barring an unforeseen twist of logic from an opposing front office, it’s not going anywhere. Whether it’s less minutes, less games or less practice, when does Phoenix change its mindset?

Budenholzer said those kinds of conversations with the training staff haven’t happened yet. He noted how some of those injuries for Beal have been bad luck, and he’s certainly right. But they keep happening. Most NBA players deal with a laundry list of ailments over the course of a season, so that part isn’t irregular, but Beal’s frequency and how often it forces him to sit out is.

It is not a safe solution. Just because Beal is on the field less doesn’t exactly reduce the likelihood of injury. Trying something different, however, must circle the minds of a few key decision makers.