How The Suns Came Crashing Down To Earth
The Phoenix Suns finished the regular season with the NBA's best record, eight games better than the next closest team. They led the league in net rating and were the only team in the league to sport a top-five offense and a top-five defense. And yet, their disastrous defeat Sunday at the hands of the Dallas Mavericks was the biggest home-court Game 7 loss in the shot-clock era. In the most important moments of the season, the Suns saw both of their units fail spectacularly.
After taking a 2-0 series lead, Phoenix lost four of the next five games and scored only 104.1 points per 100 possessions in that span, a rate that would have ranked 28th in the league during the regular season. It also yielded 113.7 points per 100 to the Mavs, which would have checked in 26th in the NBA. For the majority of Game 7, it appeared as though the Suns had either forgotten how to play basketball or had never played the sport at all.
The defensive struggles were in large part the result of a ruthless targeting campaign against Chris Paul. CP3 was an elite defender for the significant majority of his career, and he's remained a strong positive on that end even as he's aged. He does have one weakness, though, that cannot be fixed: He's tiny, for an NBA...