Let every team in the NBA play the style of offense the Suns play and let's see how many points per game they give up.

3rd worse in the NBA in defense, but one of the 5 best teams in the league. Come on people ... THINK!

The Suns play defense. They are not the Milwaukee Bucks.

Phoenix's defensive slide bodes ill for playoffs
Posted: Wednesday April 5, 2006
By Kevin Pelton, 82games.com, Special to SI.com

Within the past month, the Phoenix Suns have been featured in two contradictory series of articles. First, a few weeks ago, came the stories arguing that Phoenix's defense was underrated because of the fast pace at which the Suns play. In the last week or so, though, following Amaré Stoudemire's aborted comeback from microfracture knee surgery, those words have been replaced by columns arguing that Phoenix's defense is broken, leaving the Suns in big trouble.

As is usually the case, the reality of the situation is more complicated.

Because the Suns' run-and-gun style lends itself to so many more possessions than the average NBA game (according to KnickerBlogger.net, Phoenix averages 95.0 possessions a game, 1.4 more than any other team in the league), the only fair way to evaluate their offense and defense is on a per-possession basis. Offensive and defensive ratings measure how many points a team scores and allows, respectively, per 100 possessions. (I wrote in more detail about the value of offensive and defensive ratings for SI.com earlier this season.) Based on those measures, Phoenix finished 17th last season in the NBA in defensive rating.

Although the Suns' reputation for offensive excellence is well deserved, it was surprising to see Phoenix among the league leaders in defensive rating for the first two months of the current season, allowing barely more than a point per possession. But as the season has dragged on, the Suns have faltered at the defensive end of the court. Today they find themselves out of the NBA's top 10 in defensive rating, allowing 106.5 points per 100 possessions after Sunday's loss at Detroit.

What has gone wrong? Conventional wisdom says that the Suns' defensive fortunes soured when center Kurt Thomas went down with a stress fracture in his right foot in late February. Indeed, Thomas, who recently told Phoenix-area reporters he doesn't expect to play again until the Western Conference finals, certainly deserves much of the credit for Phoenix's defensive success early in the season. He's a strong position defender who was also the Suns' tallest rotation player before his injury. (According to 82games.com, Phoenix's defensive rating is 6.5 points better when Thomas is on the court.)

Posted by TheGame:

You guys have condemned IT's offense before even seeing it. It looked pretty good to me in the preseason, and I think Balkman and JJ2 will fit into that offense. This is especially true with Balkman because he has the ability to get the rebound and run the break. The Suns comment was merely intended as an attention grabber, which is what a GM is supposed to do (i.e. create fan buzz). We will see this Friday if this offense will work with the starters as well as it worked with the SL team.

In all honesty. We really have no idea what kind of offensive, defensive team we are going to see yet. Normally, an idea team would have a dominating center, a decent couple of point guards who can dribble, pass and protect the ball, who can also have a decent shot outside, unless you have a super star guard. Two forewards who can muscle underneath for rebounds (at least one of them) and who both can shoot the ball. Either way, you have either a star center with supporting cast, or a superstar guard with a couple of decent centers or a combo of a super star foreward-guard or foreward-center. I look at our team and we don't fit any of those catagories right now, with Frye being our only hope thus far.

Posted by BRIGGS:

Posted by earthmansurfer:

I think people are taking the "suns like offense" statement a bit to literally. Isiah can coach. He just can't trade very well I see the team as being more up tempo / running and taking the easy basket. But, they can shoot, just not very well from the outside. Lets see how Q's back is and if Nate can keep it up. We only need two good outside shooters imo to make it work (like the suns) from the outside. If that doesn't pan out, we can still run and go for mid range or inside shots. I don't see the issue. But, the preseason is sort of part of the plan. Adjustments will be made. We do have players that can run. We have a deep bench to tire the opposing teams with this style.

EMS

You play to the personnel you have. We have two horses down low, one finese, one power. If i had to state LB's biggest mistake last year--it was pulling Curry at times when he started going of to soon. We PAID a LOT of money and gave up a LOT to get EC. IMO we play of Curry Frye and Crawford on unit 1 with one role player and marbury. the second unit is more of a speed unit with lee nate Q and francis whoever is better out of balkman jefferies or rose plays in unit 1 as the role player.
Play off the big 3 in unit 1 Crawford Curry and Frye 28-30 minutes
Change the pace in unit 2 with lee nate Q and francis

it doesnt make sense?

I'm just hoping we can play almost as good as chicago, so they won't get another good pick.

Posted by nixluva:

The way some of you are taking this is too literal. Isiah is no fool. This team will run when it can, but it's not going to be a team that just runs all the time even off makes from the other team. He's talking about using a motion offense in the halfcourt and some opportunistic running off good D.

We have some really good halfcourt weapons and there's no way he's gonna just ignore that and have the team run like fools. We don't have that kind of personnel. Isiah's been talking about using part of offenses that are half court sets, so quite clearly he doesn't think we're gonna run all game like PHX.

'run like fools'. I like that!