A Defensive State of Mind is Imaginary in Phoenix

By: Tyler Head

The Phoenix Suns are terrible at defense. I feel like a broken record because my blog writing colleagues and I have mentioned this problem several times. It hasn’t been done without warrant though. This video from a game against the Boston Celtics in early December is a perfect microcosm for just how awful the Suns are at trying to stop their opponents.

In the clip you can see the blatant lack of effort made by the Suns. They didn’t bother to cover the Celtics’ shooter and they hardly gave any effort into trying to get the rebound. As previously stated in this series of blogs, the Suns are easily one of the worst defenses statically speaking. As of right now they rank in the bottom third in every defensive category except for rebounds where they sit 19th.

At the very end of the video Boston ends up sinking a 3-pointer. The Celtics would go on to win 116–111 that night. This epitomizes the sad reality of the Phoenix Suns this season; their decent offense can’t compensate for their bad defense. The last time I discussed their offense they were 15th in points-per-game, they have since fallen to 19th. Looking at their last six games-all loses-the offense has scored fairly well in four of the contests. The defense, however, failed to hold any of their opponents under 110 points. The season is out of their hands at this point, the offseason can’t come fast enough for this suffering franchise.