'Stacking great days': Kevin Durant pleased with Phoenix Suns progress throughout training camp, preseason

Kevin Durant is focused on the next step for the Phoenix Suns as they’re less than 10 days away from their season opener on Oct. 24 at Golden State.

“It’s early man,” Durant said after Sunday’s open practice before fans at Footprint Center. “We’ve got a long track ahead of us. I think we’ve been stacking great days, though. I don’t want to look up and see what the progress is. I just want to keep going, keep stacking.”

The new-look Suns play the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday at Footprint Center and wrap up their five-game preseason slate Thursday against the Los Angeles Lakers in Palm Springs.

“I’m sure a third through the season, we’ll figure out what our true identity really is,” Durant said. “But I think we’re putting together some good days of basketball, good days of teaching and we’ll see where that takes us.”

Suns coach Frank Vogel confirmed after Saturday’s practice the Big 3 of Bradley Beal, Booker and Durant will play Monday after those three didn’t see action in Phoenix’s first home preseason game last week against the defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets.

Beal missed Phoenix’s third preseason game Thursday at Portland with low back tightness.

The Suns will be without Eric Gordon for Monday’s preseason game as he didn’t participate in Sunday’s open practice. The veteran guard is experiencing left hip tightness.

Vogel also confirmed Drew Eubanks will play after sitting Thursday’s game with a left ankle sprain.

The Suns began training camp on Oct. 3 with only six returning players from last season’s team in Devin Booker, Josh Okogie, Damion Lee, Ish Wainright, two-way player Saben Lee and Durant.

They’ve had much to learn, particularly Vogel’s defensive schemes and coverages, but the Suns are past the installment phase already.

“Just the understanding of what our system is going to look like,” Vogel said after Sunday's practice. “You’ve got to give our guys a structure and environment of how we’re going to play. Day 1, that was all wide eyes and like, give us the plan. Now the plan, for the most part has been implemented, installed and now it has to be fine-tuned with the execution, which still has a long way to go as expected as every team is at this time of the year.”

The Suns not only have a new head coach, but a new coaching staff outside of assistant Kevin Young, who worked under Monty Williams.

That seems to be working out as well.

“Everybody’s mentality and approach have been lining up and we’re all on the same page to compete and get better,” said Booker after Saturday’s practice. “We have an understanding of how important each possession is and understanding the potential of how good we can be and taking advantage of that.”

The Suns showed their defensive capability in Thursday’s preseason win at Portland by limiting the Blazers to 28 points in the final 16 minutes of the first half after surrendering 27 in the game’s first eight minutes.

“The first six minutes was poor,” Vogel said about the defense. “The rest of the game was great.”

Phoenix closed the first half on the 26-4 run to take a 76-55 halftime lead.

“It’s starts with what we do on the defensive side of the ball,” Durant said. “You noticed in the two preseason games we’ve all played in, when we got stops and was able to make multiple efforts on defense, that’s when the game just blew open pretty fast. When we were trading baskets with teams like we did Detroit for the first three or four minutes and Portland for the first quarter, it looked like an even game, but once we got multiple stops in a row, then you start seeing those outbursts.”

The Suns outscored the Blazers, 39-15, in the second quarter as they shot 53.6% from the field (5-of-10 from 3) and limited Portland to 30% shooting (1-of-7 from 3).

“When we get out in transition, we started swinging that ball two or three times in transition, I think that’s when we’re dangerous,” Durant continued. “It all starts with our focus on the defensive end. I know that’s cliché, but that’s really what it is for us if we want to be a good offensive team.”

The Suns are also developing a team closeness that was evident in how they interacted with each other with smiles, laughs and hi-fives during Sunday’s open practice.

“It’s a new team, a lot of new guys,” Suns forward Yuta Watanabe said after Sunday’s practice. “We’ve just got to communicate. It’s not going to be easy, but chemistry is getting a lot better like every day. It’s going to continue to get better.”

A total of 16,000 tickets were distributed for the open practice, team officials said Sunday.

Have opinion about current state of the Suns? Reach Suns Insider Duane Rankin at dmrankin@gannett.com or contact him at 480-787-1240. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @DuaneRankin.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Suns growing with regular season opener at Warriors on horizon