Why Kevin Durant, Phoenix Suns will end a disappointing season missing the playoffs

NEW ORLEANS — Kevin Durant was the last to leave Paycom Center’s visiting locker room Friday night after an ugly 128-103 loss to his former team in the city that remains upset about him leaving for Golden State.

Leaning back in a chair in front of the locker, Durant, still in his black Phoenix Suns jersey, addressed being vehemently booed once again in Oklahoma City. It’s approaching a decade, but the wounds are still fresh from him joining the Warriors after he and Thunder blew a 3-1 lead to them in the Western Conference finals.

“It's hard to not hear how people react to you when your name is called,” Durant said. “It’s been eight years. I understand the dynamics to all of this. What being a fan means and what I meant to this city. I’ve been saying this for eight years now. I let the fans react how they want to react. This is their before whereas before I tried to tell them how to act towards me.”

That brought a smile to Durant’s face on what was a long night on multiple levels. Before talking about the OKC fans, Durant addressed the idea of believing the Suns can be at their best come playoff time.

“We’ve got eight more games left,” Durant said. “Hopefully we get an opportunity to play in the postseason. Just take it a game at a time.”

Hopefully?

This can — and has already been — poked and dissected by a disappointed and frustrated fan base that not only saw the Thunder splatter their Suns without injured All-Star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, but watched Phoenix (43-31) fall short of playing up to championship expectations all season with its Big 3 of Devin Booker, Bradley Beal and Durant.

Still, they’re seventh in the West and just 1 ½ games behind Dallas for that coveted sixth spot to avoid the play-in tournament. The Mavericks (44-29) own the head-to-head tiebreaker over Phoenix, too, but they are a losing skid away, coupled with a late Suns surge, from ending up in the play-in instead.

That sounds like something even a Suns optimist might find hard to visualize.

Here’s why Phoenix will fall short of the playoffs to mercifully conclude what has been one of the most disappointing seasons for the franchise in recent memory.

Toughest remaining schedule

Phoenix’s final eight games are all against teams in the top five of their respective conferences. The Suns conclude their five-game road trip Monday against New Orleans.

They return to Phoenix for a four-game homestand with games against Cleveland, Minnesota, New Orleans again and the Los Angeles Clippers before closing the regular season on three-game road trip against the Clippers again in what will be the second of a back-to-back, Sacramento and Minnesota one final time.

The Suns could easily go 3-5 or worse and end up in the eighth or even worse ninth spot that requires a team to win twice in the play-in just to land the eighth seed. The remaining four teams in play-in consideration — Sacramento, Los Angeles Lakers, Golden State and red-hot Houston, winners of 11 straight — are a combined 8-9 against Phoenix.

Does anyone want to play a win-or-go home game against LeBron James or Stephen Curry?

Deep rooted flaws

Turnovers. Defending the 3.

Transition defense. Finishing games.

The Suns have had problems in all four areas.

They’re 25th in the NBA in turnovers, 21st in 3-pointers allowed, 19th in transition points allowed and have the worst plus-minus in the league in the fourth quarter at minus-3.

Any team that can’t protect the ball, yield 3s, doesn't get back on defense and can't close out games can’t be trusted.

The Suns have talked at nauseam about these issues, will make progress in one or two only digress and have one or two cost them a game. Those type of teams find ways to miss the playoffs.

Lacking urgency

The Suns know every game at this point matters in trying to avoid the play-in, but they’ve showed on this road trip an inability to consistently play with the necessary energy, focus and intensity.

Playoff teams don’t lose to the worst team in the West — Spurs — without rookie phenom Victor Wembanyama, beat the best in the West — defending NBA champion Denver — and then get cooked by OKC without its best player.

They all know what’s at stake, but they can’t put it together to string together much-needed win.

Phoenix is 74 games into the season and shown its only consistency is being inconsistent.

Blame the players. Blame the coaches. Blame the front office and ownership for putting together a top-heavy roster and having a point guard, but hard to change a team’s tendencies in eight games when facing tough competition and having its own deficiencies that are harder to cover and even harder to fix in such a short time frame.

Have opinions about the 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: Why Kevin Durant, Phoenix Suns will fall short of NBA Playoffs