Phoenix Suns' paint scoring woes tested against top opponents this week

Devin Booker and Kevin Durant combined for 72 points, more than half of the Suns' 122 in their 21-point rout of the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday.

Even though the Suns shot a solid 50.6% overall and 54.5% from the 3, they scored just 44 points in the paint to the Cavaliers' 60, which was more than half of Cleveland's total points. After the game, the Suns slipped in team rankings as the NBA's 25th team to the 26th for points scored in the paint, averaging 47.4. Points in the paint are an Achilles' heel for the team, in addition to their fourth-quarter performance woes.

Phoenix's first two games in its four-game homestand involve opponents who are among the league's top rim and paint protectors. That included Cleveland, which is third in the Eastern Conference, and the West's No. 1 Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday.

Minnesota and Cleveland are the league's No. 1 and seventh-best defenses, respectively, second and sixth in paint-scoring allowed, as well as fourth and sixth in allowing second chance points. Those rankings might suggest trouble for Phoenix in the offensive paint.

“We’ll figure it out. I think we’ll adapt to the game and that’s gonna be two teams in a row with long athletic guys, so we’ll be prepared," Durant said after the Cleveland game.

The "long, athletic guys" that Durant referred to are Cleveland's twin towers Evan Mobley and former All-Star Jarrett Allen, along with Minnesota's Rudy Gobert and Naz Reid.

Mobley, who's played in just 45 games this season following his knee surgery in mid-December, is Cleveland's top shot-blocker at 1.5 per game. Allen's 1.1 is tied for 20th in the league.

“We got two elite rim protectors that start out there. Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen are elite at protecting the paint and protecting the rim, so it makes it difficult," Cleveland coach J.B. Bickerstaff said before Wednesday's game. "The way our scheme is set up, they can protect one another, so you got one 7-footer protecting another 7-footer, it makes it difficult for teams to get in there.”

Gobert's 2.1 is sixth, and Reid's 0.9 is tied for 34th in shot blocks per game.

“I think you have to space those guys out a bit,” Booker said about the Minnesota shot-blockers during the Suns' Wednesday shootaround. “They’re great at defending the paint, so if you can get in the paint and cause them to rotate, I think it opens up things on the backside for us.”

Suns coach Frank Vogel offered more context to his team's ranking for points in the paint.

“That’s a little misleading because we do shoot 3s and we get to the free throw line. Teams that are top five in free throw attempts aren’t going to be top five in points in the paint because we’re getting put to the line. We do a good job attacking the paint and we just gotta make sure we read.

"They have shot-blockers in there, and I think we played (San Antonio's Victor) Wembanyama last week who at the time was averaging five blocks a game, and we had great rim efficiency and discipline in there not to get our shot blocked and to play extra-pass basketball. That’s what we gotta do when we approach their size at the basket."

Spurs' Rookie of the Year candidate Wembanyama is the league's top rim protector at 3.5 blocks per contest. When the Suns blew out the Spurs on March 23, they outscored the Spurs in the paint, 68-56 with him in the lineup. Wembanyama missed the next game a few days later against Phoenix which the Spurs won.

The positive for Phoenix against Cleveland Wednesday was in second-chance point production, 14-8.

“We only had eight offensive rebounds, but I think we scored on most of them," Vogel said.

He gave much credit to center Jusuf Nurkic, who grabbed four of those eight. Vogel said his team collectively did well extending possessions that led to kick-out 3s and need to continue to do more of that.

Royce O'Neale (17 points, five 3s on Wednesday) is the Suns' fourth-best in hitting 3s (39.7%) since he joined the team at the February trade deadline. He knows the three-time Defensive Player of the Year Gobert's game well from their mutual years played for the Utah Jazz from 2017 to 2022.

“Throughout the years, he’s gotten better,” O’Neale said at the Suns' practice Thursday. “Just playing basketball, reading open looks, attacking him, or kicking it out for making other shots, spacing, just finding way to score.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Suns address paint-scoring vs Cavaliers, face tall task next