What week three taught us about the Suns: Good but not quite great

Week recap: 3-1, with wins coming against the 76ers, Hornets and Raptors and the loss coming to the Lakers.

Jared Dudley can ball:

Everyone wanted to believe that Jared Dudley would continue to develop this season and play a major role for the Suns. Dudley proved it in week three.

In the four games the Suns played, JD averaged 11.75 points, 5 rebounds and 1 steal. Along with his stats, he was a strong defensive presence on the court in the three wins and, as usual, he brought added hustle and energy to the floor.

Coach Gentry seemed to agree by giving Dudley key minutes down the stretch in Sunday’s one point victory over the Raptors.

The Suns are strong in the fourth quarter:

The Suns may rank in the lower half of the NBA in overall defense again but there has been a change. The Suns are strong defensively in the 4th quarter of games. This past week the Suns held opponents to an average of 41% shooting in the fourth (26-for-63) and in the team’s three wins, Phoenix held their opponents to an impressive 36% shooting in the fourth quarter.

Along with their newfound late game defensive toughness, the Suns have continued to put pressure on their opponents offensively. The Suns outscored them in the fourth quarter last week 113 to 106, an average of 28.25 to 26.5 points per fourth quarter.

In addition, in the two close games, last Monday versus Philadelphia and Sunday versus Toronto, the Suns outscored both teams by a combined 59 to 50. In both games the Suns trailed entering the fourth quarter.

The Suns can win without scoring fast break points

The Suns scored 20 fewer fastbreak points than their opponents this week and still finished with three wins in four tries. The Suns didn’t score more than 20 points on the fastbreak all week and the only team they had more than was Toronto (10 to 4).

Maybe this isn’t the “run and gun” system of the Mike D’Antoni Era.

The Suns give up a lot of points in the paint

This will come as less of a “surprise” and more of a confirmation of what everyone expected from the Suns. The Suns give up a lot of points in the paint. Last week they gave up 214 points in the paint over four games, that’s good for a 53.5 points per game average. The Suns bigs only managed 170 points or 42.5 per game.

The worst performance came against the Lakers. The Suns gave up 78 points in the paint while only scoring 4 of their own.

The second night of a back-to-back against a top-caliber opponent isn’t going to end well

Another “non-surprise” here. For the second straight week the Suns were handed a horrible loss on the second night of back-to-back games against a top opponent. Last week the team was embarrassed by the Magic and this week the Lakers handed them a 19-point defeat.

Games like these may be the only time the Suns look old this season.

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