Inside the Suns – Topics: First game impressions, Bud’s player rotation, Jusuf Nurkic

Your weekly Inside the Suns analysis straight from the BSotS community who live and breathe the team.

Welcome to Inside the Suns, your weekly deep down analysis of the current Phoenix Suns team.

Each week the Fantable – a round table of Bright Siders – give their takes on the Suns’ latest issues and news.

Fantable Questions of the Week

Q1 – We’ve only seen one regular season game but what are your initial impressions from that performance?

GuarGuar: The first half against the Clips we played like a modern NBA offense which was awesome to see! The third quarter was a sloppy turnover fest and looked like our team from last year. The 4th was a mix of both but we showed resiliency and won the 4th which was something we rarely did last season!

I wasn’t a fan of how little Bud played Booker/Beal compared to Durant (pre overtime). A complaint he had when he coached was the bucks was how he didn’t play Giannis more than 32-33 mins most nights including sometimes in the playoffs. It’s early though so we shall see how that shakes out.

OldAz: It was only game 1 under this new system and it looked like it. We watched a very uneven game with a lot of positives and a lot of negatives, but again, it is only 1 game and there is a long season ahead.

Among the negatives, we saw way too many turnovers and the Suns gave up way too many rebounds. What’s the point of adding all these point guards only to play them off ball and have KD, Kirk, and Book turn the ball over. This was especially true at the start of the 4th quarter when they want back to bad ISO looks for KD. However, this also led to my biggest positives as someone made a change and took the ball out of KDs hands and had Tyus Jones start creating and later in OT Beal do more ball handling. If these were intentional moves by Coach Bud, then that is a huge plus. Let the point guards set up your stars.

I also liked how Bud used his bench and featured Beal with O’Neale, Oso, Dunn and Morris. That lineup sparked something in both halves and played pretty good defense. Finally, I am not overly worried about Book getting off to a slow start. We have not seen that often, but I am confident it will work itself out.

Brrrberry: Last night’s game we’d have let slip away last year, in the 4th quarter. I’m glad we were able to sneak out of there with a win. I’m expecting it to take about 20 games for them to hit a stride offensively. The Clippers were a good test as that’s a top quarter of the league defensive squad without a doubt. They really mucked it up and didn’t make things easy.

I told a friend with about 6 minutes to go in the game that if we lost it was on Booker. At that point it was one of his lesser performances and this team needs him to be aggressive offensively which he wasn’t. The fact he fouled out just speaks to the fact he wasn’t focused like he usually is. Beal played a hell of a game and I’m thrilled he’s healthy to start the season.

Rod: Anyone remember an old 1966’s Clint Eastwood western titled “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly?” That title also kind of fit this game because sometimes the Suns looked really good, then suddenly reverted to some very bad habits and ultimately got a fairly ugly win in the process. The offense alone might be better compared to “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” though as it cycled back and forth between looking very good (free flowing with lots of ball movement) to very bad (ISO). They also weren’t attempting as many threes as they had been in preseason (38 compared to their PS average of 44) which isn’t something I want to see turn into a trend.

As for the defense, it wasn’t bad but wasn’t really good either. At least everyone seemed to hustle on D and there were some good individual defensive moments. Obviously it still needs some work but if the players keep the effort level high I think it will get better with time. On the plus side, the Suns blocked 9 shots in that game with everyone except Nurk and Monte Morris getting a block.

Rebounding (the lack of, especially offensive rebs) looks like it could be an issue again. So do turnovers. The bulk of the TOs (68.2%, 15 of 22) were committed by KD (7), Book (4) and Nurk (4). Most of Book’s and Nurk’s TOs (6) were of the bad pass variety but KD made a virtual TO salad with 3 step out of bounds TOs, 2 lost ball/stolen TOs with one bad pass TO and one double dribble thrown in for seasoning.

Book didn’t quite seem himself in that game and didn’t score until he hit a 3 with 5.12 left to go in the half… and that was only his 3rd FG attempt. The Clips are a very good defensive team but it didn’t seem as though Book was really aggressive offensively. Maybe that was by design as the Suns did end the 1st half with an eight point lead but I’d like to see him at least a little more aggressive on offense in the future.

Q2 – Were there any surprises in Bud’s player rotation against the Clippers?

GuarGuar: He definitely kept the rotations very random and we saw practically every combo we could realistically come up with. I wasn’t shocked Oso was first off the bench before Plumlee in the 2nd half. I agree with the decision but I was surprised this early in the season he has that kind of trust in Oso.

OldAz: First, how deep he went. I did not know if Oso getting so many minutes was a product of early fouls for Nurk or part of the plan, but the kid showed he belonged on the floor. That said, I loved that he let the rookies play and gave them room to look bad at times but also do some good things as they showed consistent effort. This is something the Suns have needed with young players for a long time.

Second was Book’s rotations as he was pulled with 4-5 minutes left in the 1st and 3rd quarters and didn’t come back in till well into the 2nd and 4th. We are used to Book playing all of the 1st and getting off to a fast start. I wonder if that rest pattern was planned or a product of his production. If it is planned, I am never a fan of players sitting for that long in 1 stretch and hope he finds something that works better. On the other hand, I love featuring Beal with KD and Book on the bench as it seemed to get him going and Beal can certainly carry a lineup for significant stretches.

Brrrberry: I like how he went 11 deep. Every guy that got minutes is a legit NBA player and deserves the minutes they got. Oso appears to have already seized the backup C role, or at least is in a timeshare there with Plumlee. Having 3 capable C who all play a similar style is good roster construction as we’re not forced to really change much of what we do regardless of who’s in at C. Great to see two rookies who actually deserve minutes out there from game 1. They’re going to improve a lot as the year goes on. I did think Bud sat Booker for a bit too long at times, that’d be my only qualm.

Rod: I was a little surprised to see both Dunn and Ighodaro getting minutes in the 1st quarter. I was much more surprised to see Bud put in a lineup without a point guard to start the 2nd quarter though (Beal, Allen, Nurk, Ighodaro and Durant). They didn’t play badly through those 3 and a half mins but I’d rather not see them playing w/o a PG.

Eleven players in the rotation surprised me a bit but not a lot. I’m sure that Bud will eventually get it down to 9-10 players but it’s still a work in progress this early in the season. What really caught my eye was that everyone who played looked like they belonged out there which wasn’t what I saw last season, especially when some of the bench players started rotating in.

Q3 – So far we’ve only seen Nurk in two games but how well do you think he’s going to work in Bud’s system?

GuarGuar: Bud definitely wants Nurk taking more 3s and we saw that on Wednesday. I think he will more or less be about the same player as last season. His role isn’t drastically changing on either end of the floor. I think defensively he may be a tad more vulnerable given how little Bud likes to trap players on defense. We saw a drop coverage on Harden for most of the night and that’s difficult on Nurk because he’s caught in between and mobility is not one of his strengths.

OldAz: I didn’t watch much of the preseason game, but I thought Nurk held his own. He was willing to shoot the 3 but needs to make a decent percentage for that to be of value. I know others are very critical of Nurk, but I am pretty happy with what he brings to the table on both ends. My only complaint would be his lack of finishing around the rim, but that’s not getting better any time soon in my opinion.

Brrrberry: Nurk will assimilate just fine, he’s a hopper. A big big hopper but a hooper nonetheless. He’s a great rebounder and crucial to this roster holding its own on the boards. He appears to have put in plenty of work this offseason taking care of his body and that always pays dividends. Hopefully he’ll find a rhythm shooting the 3 so he can pose a bit of a threat out there. All we need from him is about 33% and it’ll do the trick.

Rod: The jury is still out on this one but Nurk’s hit 3 of 8 from three over 2 games (37.5%) which is certainly good enough to make the other team pay attention to him defensively when he’s out at the 3-point line. That’s the key to him fitting into Bud’s system so if he can maintain that average in addition to everything else he does well there shouldn’t be a problem.

As always, many thanks to our Fantable members for all their extra effort this week!

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Rookie & Two-way Players Report

Ryan Dunn – 8.7 mpg, 2.0 ppg, 2.0 rpg, 1.0 apg, 0.0 spg, 1.0 bpg, 0.0 TO, 3.0 PF, 20.0% FG% (1-5), 0.0% 3P% (0-2), 0.0% FT% (0-0)

Oso Ighodaro – 12.2 mpg, 2.0 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 1.0 apg, 0.0 spg, 1.0 bpg, 0.0 TO, 3.0 PF, 100.0% FG% (1-1), 0.0 3P% (0-0), 0.0% FT% (0-0)

Jalen Bridges – DNP-CD

Collin Gillespie – DNP-CD

TyTy Washington Jr – DNP-CD

Statistics courtesy of NBA.com.

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Last Week’s poll results

Last week’s question was “Do you believe Ryan Dunn will maintain a 40+ shooting percentage from three during the regular season?”

13% – Yes.

87% – No.

A total of 223 votes were cast.

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Suns Trivia/History

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Quotes of the Week

“The game’s evolving, I’m just trying to evolve with it.” – Devin Booker

“It does nothing but motivate everyone else, and it’s contagious because if he’s not satisfied with where he’s at, how can anybody else be?” – Tyus Jones on Kevin Durant’s work ethic

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Important Future Dates

Nov. 12 – Emirates NBA Cup begins

Dec. 3 – Emirates NBA Cup Group Stage concludes

Dec. 10-11 – Emirates NBA Cup Quarterfinals

Dec. 14 – Emirates NBA Cup Semifinals (Las Vegas, NV)

Dec. 17 – Emirates NBA Cup Championship (Las Vegas, NV)

Jan. 5 – 10-day contracts may now be signed

Jan. 10 – All NBA contracts are guaranteed for the remainder of the season

Feb. 6 – NBA Trade Deadline (3 p.m. ET)

Feb. 14-19 – NBA All-Star break

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This week’s poll is…