Opining Suns: Is it Time to Hit the Panic Button?

Oh, for those carefree times when the Suns were 14-3. The toast of the NBA, a team predicated on chemistry and an up-tempo style that had distinguished them from the rest of the basketball pack over the course of the 21st century, a team going places.

My, how fortunes have turned on this team.

Reeling after a stretch that has seen them go 1-4 so far in this month, the Suns are facing down the barrel of a schedule that has them playing some of the elite teams in both the Eastern and Western Conferences, and these match-ups couldn’t have come at a worse time.

The Suns have suddenly gone into a bit of a scoring slump. After winning four in a row to wrap up a hugely successful month of November, they are averaging 98.6 points a game, while at the same time allowing 110 points per contest. Yes, there were match-ups against teams like the Cavaliers and Lakers thrown in there, but there were also games against the Knicks (when they allowed 126 points) and the Kings managed to score 107 on them.

With a tough road slate to open the season, it had to be expected that this team would eventually hit the wall, but no one knew that the wall would virtually fall down on them afterwards. Games against the Magic, Nuggets, Spurs, and Blazers loom on the horizon, and further down the line the Suns will have to tangle with the Cavaliers, Wizards, and a horrific two-fer at the end of the month when they face the Lakers and Celtics back-to-back.

Fortunately for the Suns, a lot of these games will be played in front of the home fans. Eight of the team’s 11 remaining games this month will be played at the US Airways Center, where the Suns have a perfect 7-0 record this season.

What has caused this swoon that the Suns are experiencing? For starters, there has been the lackluster play as of late by Channing Frye. An early season break-out, Frye has come back down to Earth a bit in these last five games, shooting a paltry 18-of-47 from the floor, and 10-of-28 from beyond the arc. He’s still averaging 12 points and 6 boards a night, but that’s not going to cut it as the starting center of an offensive juggernaut like the Suns.

Amare Stoudemire has also been a concern, turning the ball over with a frequency that has to terrify Suns fans (an average of three times per game this season), and he only had five boards against an under-sized Knicks team, and five against the Mavericks last night. In the four losses during December, he has only averaged 7.5 boards per contest, and 1.5 offensive boards. If Amare isn’t helping out Frye on the glass, then the Suns’ frequent shots are going to carry less significance because they won’t be put back up by the Windex men down low.

Steve Nash hasn’t played that poorly during this stretch. He is 10-of-17 from beyond the arc in his last five games, and he has averaged 21 points per game. His main problem has been his lack of assists, with an average of fewer than 8 per game during that time. When a guy like Nash only has eight helpers in over 40 minutes of floor time in a game, then there is a problem brewing.

Speaking of abysmal shooting, we shouldn’t leave out Mr. J-Rich. His field goal percentage has been atrocious in December, with a 27-of-67 on his resume. He has also been ice cold from 3-point land, making 5-of-24 attempts from downtown. He had a streak of seven straight games in which he had shot above 50% from the floor, but that was snapped against the Cavaliers, and he hasn’t broken the half-century mark since.

With the poor play exhibited by the team lately, is it time to panic? A team at 15-7 is hardly in danger of falling completely out of the race at any given moment, but they have already lost two games to the Lakers, so if they are going to hang around in the division race, then they will have to start playing better against their purple-and-gold clad rivals.

The team’s sloppy play as a whole has been concerning as well. Losing Leandro Barbosa off the bench does mean that the starting guards will have to play more minutes, but that certainly isn’t a carte blanche excuse for mediocre performances. Nash and Grant Hill will need to step up their play big time if the team is to stay afloat during Barbosa’s absence, and players like Goran Dragic will have to play a bigger role as well.

With so many of their stars struggling, the Suns are wandering dangerously close to that dreaded “panic territory”. If they can’t turn around their offensive ineffectiveness quickly, then it may very well be time to hit the panic button.

Final Verdict: The Finger is Hovering, but It’s Not Time to Panic Yet

Tags: Amare Stoudemire, Channing Frye, Grant Hill, Jason Richardson, Leandro Barbosa, Phoenix Suns, Steve Nash