Even with a 10-3 Mark, Should the Suns Be Concerned?

Through the first 13 games of the regular season, the Phoenix Suns are 10-3, and have won a couple of solid games, including beating a then undefeated Celtics team at the Garden, and also beating Miami on South Beach.

In addition, the Suns offense has looked very good, with Amare Stoudemire coming back strong off of his injury issues from a year ago, and Steve Nash re-finding his form that had eluded him while he was hamstrung by Terry Porter’s “defense-first” mentality.

Steve Nash

Best of all, the 10-3 mark hasn’t suffered much because of the team’s hectic road schedule, with 9 of those 13 games being played away from the Valley. Overall, the Suns are 6-3 on the road, which is nothing to sneeze at under any circumstances.

Areas of concern are developing, however.

The first trend that is bad is happening in the scoring column. The Suns have allowed over 100 points 11 times already this season, and the Heat did manage to score 96 to at least sniff the century mark. Yes, it is okay to allow 100 points when you are able to score more than that (the Suns have hit the century mark in every game so far this year, the only team in the league to do so), but when you are doing that on a consistent basis, it is going to be hard to win.

Another disturbing trend has been the ball-control issues that Stoudemire has been experiencing recently. He has put up point guard-like turnover numbers in the last three games, racking up 12 over that span, including five in the Suns’ loss to the Hornets on Thursday night. This comes when the Hornets are missing their best “steal-guy” in Chris Paul, and it is startling to see a power forward coughing up the ball that much.

One more weird number is the relative ineffectiveness that Jason Richardson has been experiencing from beyond the arc in recent games. After a three game stretch in which he went 16-for-22 from 3-point land, he has cooled off considerably, draining 6 of 26 from three land, and adding a particularly abysmal 0-for-5 against a very solid Lakers defense to boot.

With these numbers jostling around in our heads, are we seeing some signs that the Suns’ hot start could be in jeopardy of fizzling out?

The bottom likely won’t fall out for the Suns in their next five games, as they face some sub-par teams (and three more road games), but the road after that becomes considerably tougher.

Amare Stoudemire

On the second half of a back-to-back, the Suns will face the Cavaliers in Cleveland on December 2nd, and after that, they have to play the Lakers, Mavericks, Magic, Nuggets, Spurs, Blazers, Wizards, and the Cavaliers again. That is a murderer’s row of pain if the Suns aren’t careful, and they could easily find themselves on the way out of the upper echelon of the Western Conference if they can’t win some games.

Before the doom and gloom button gets pushed, however, there is a silver lining to the proceedings. Yes, that stretch of games is going to be an absolute bear to overcome, but the Suns have shown they can hang with the big boys. In their five game road trip through tough environments like Boston, Washington, and Orlando, the Suns managed to go 4-1 against some of the Eastern Conference’s best squads, and they did it all with their trademark offense and a defense that could occasionally lock down and make life difficult.

Much like they did against Houston on Tuesday, the Suns can not only run the floor with abandon, but they can also force teams to play Phoenix’s game, and jack up shots from all over. Houston went 9-of-28 from the field in the 4th quarter, and that was all the Suns needed to complete their comeback victory.

Even in the loss, the Suns forced the Hornets to jack up an astonishing 97 shots, and they only shot with 40% success. That seems like a good recipe for success, but the problem was where the Hornets were making the shots from. They shot 13-of-25 from downtown, including seven threes from Peja Stojakovic. If a team is shooting with that kind of ferocity, it is unlikely that you can come out on top, no matter how good your offense is.

Leandro Barbosa chest bumping Steve Nash

The quality of the looks, however, can also be listed as a detriment to the Suns’ defense. Peja was shooting wide-open quite a bit, and even on contested shots he looked as though he was just plain feelin’ it. More pressure needed to be applied to Peja and the Hornets, but the Suns were unable to do that because of how quickly the ball was going up once it passed half-court.

Another depressing stat from this game was the number of offensive rebounds the Hornets pulled down. Keep in mind that they shot the ball 97 times, and the Hornets managed to get 25 offensive boards off of those misses. That means that for more than a quarter of New Orleans’ possessions, they were getting second chances. That’s not going to cut it if you intend on winning ball games.

So are the Suns on a path of doom and heartache for their fans? Are they simply tired from so many road games so early in the season? Should we be panicking?

The answers to these questions will be revealed soon enough, but for right now, take their 10-3 mark with a sizeable grain of salt. This season’s about to get a lot more interesting.

Tags: Amare Stoudemire, Boston Celtics, Chris Paul, Cleveland Cavaliers, Jason Richardson, Leandro Barbosa, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat, New Orleans Hornets, Orlando Magic, Phoenix Suns, Steve Nash