Why the Suns need to lean even more on their 'Big 3' | Devine Intervention
Yahoo Sports NBA writer Dan Devine is joined by Jared Dubin to discuss why Phoenix should rely more on its leading stars Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal as it hits the stretch run of the regular season. Hear the full conversation on “Devine Intervention” - part of the “Ball Don’t Lie” podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
JARED DUBIN: I love the possessions where Booker, KD, and Beal all touch the ball.
DAN DEVINE: Imagine that. They do things together. Yeah. Right.
JARED DUBIN: Yeah. I just want to see everybody more involved with each other. Whatever it is, they need to get these guys working together more. Have KD set a pin-down for Booker. When you're running that KD pin-down set, use Beal as the screener.
Like, just get these guys working off each other more often and causing problems for the defense. Because when they do that, it works incredibly well for very obvious reasons.
DAN DEVINE: Yeah. It turns out that when you have three all-star, and, you know, better than that, level creators who also can shoot well off the ball, who also can move well off the ball, and you let-- you either let them or make them do stuff at the same time, a defense is going to have its head on a swivel trying to freak out and figure out what's going on with it. When they've got all three of those guys on the floor together, plus-8 per 100 possessions, score 125.5 points per 100 with those three guys on the court, which is, like, Celtics best-in-the-league level.
They haven't defended great, but they've defended well enough in those minutes. The things where they struggle-- you know, Phoenix, like, one of the big ones is that they're-- like, as good as their offense has been and efficient as their offense has been throughout the first three quarters, it falls off a cliff in the fourth. And it's been one of the worst in-- I think dead last in offensive efficiency in the fourth quarter, one of the worst in the clutch.
And they are now facing a, like, absolute murderer's row schedule of the last 10 games as they try to get into the playoff hunt there. So good news, guys-- you've created the adversity for yourself. And now, you get to overcome it.
JARED DUBIN: Yeah. I mean, they've got-- every single one of their games left is against a team that's currently in the top six in their conference. Like, their schedule is--
DAN DEVINE: Good luck, guys. Enjoy yourselves.
JARED DUBIN: Their schedule is so much harder than the next closest team. But this was the theory of the team that everybody had before the season. It's like, well, when those three guys are healthy, they're going to be pretty damn good. But also the likelihood that they're ever going to be healthy for an extended stretch is pretty low. And that's exactly what has happened throughout the season.
And then Beal and Nurkic both got hurt in that game last night. Now, they're going into this stretch, like, maybe not having one or two of those guys for some of those games-- like, exactly what we thought the team would be is exactly what they have become. The ceiling is very high. The floor is lower than you think it is.
There's a lot of limited guys elsewhere on the roster. And it's like, when all of those three guys are there, that doesn't matter as much. When only two of them are there, it matters a little bit more. And when only one of them is there, it matters a lot more.
