Phoenix Suns coach Mike Budenholzer made a tough starting lineup decision to go smaller before their 138-122 blowout home loss to the New York Knicks on Wednesday.
Budenholzer opened with the 6-6 Royce O’Neale at power forward instead of the 6-10 Mason Plumlee against the Knicks. They had a similar starting lineup size to the Suns, consisting of All-Stars Karl-Anthony Towns (34 points, 10 rebounds) in the middle and point guard Jalen Brunson (game-high 36 points, tied for game-high 10 assists), the 6-4 Hart (19 points, 11 rebounds), Anunoby (14 points, seven rebounds), and Mikal Bridges (16 points)
But the Knicks were much more physical and looked more athletic than the Suns’ starters Tyus Jones (15 points), Devin Booker (team-high 33 points), Ryan Dunn (eight points), O’Neale (17 points), and Jusuf Nurkic (14 points, 12 rebounds) at center.
“I didn’t really look into it like that,” Devin Booker said after the game. “I think we had more success in Minnesota than we did the game right after (against Orlando), but whatever coach says I’m rocking with it.”
To Booker’s point about the Minnesota and Orlando games, the Suns’ starting lineups with Plumlee and Nurkic and then rookie big Oso Ighodaro and Nurkic against Orlando had 17.6 and 7.1 net ratings respectively. Against New York, Phoenix’s starting lineup was a minus-24.8 rating.
New York’s starting lineup had a free-for-all exposing the Suns’ weaknesses in the paint and blazing through them in the open floor. They outscored the Suns 60-44 in the paint and outrebounded them 48-41. That included 31-23 on defensive boards to get out and run, outscoring the Suns with a whopping 28-10 in fast-break points.
“Credit to those guys, but I thought our transition defense at times was not where you need it to be good defensively,” Budenholzer said. “If you’re going to withstand a good shooting night, you’ve got to take away the easy ones in transition. You gotta be great there. I think we had some lapses in transition where we gotta be better.”
Budenholzer also explained that his opening lineup adjustment without two bigs was because of Towns’ versatility in the post and elite shooting along the perimeter (26.2 points per game, career-high 50% on 5.3 attempts this season).
“KAT is a unique big,” Budenholzer said after the game. “He spaces and spreads the court. They’re really kind of playing four wings around him with Josh Hart kind of being like the other big. (OG) Anunoby’s another wing that plays like a big. So we went with Royce over the two-big look. I thought that would give us our best chance.”
The Suns never led the entire game, and didn’t have a chance after being down by as much as 19 in the first quarter, and 24 in the second.
In the Minnesota game Booker cited, Phoenix came out smoking hot on 55% shooting and had a 15-point lead at the end of the first quarter. They outrebounded Minnesota and Orlando by a combined 104-82.
Plumlee started in the previous two games against the bigger Minnesota and Orlando to replace the 6-10 length of Kevin Durant, who’s missed seven straight games from a left calf strain. Plumlee played well through the Suns’ previous five games (6.0 points, 9.6 rebounds, 3.6 assists).
“More size, better on the boards, and when those two positions come together you can switch things,” Plumlee said at the Suns’ Wednesday shootaround about having two bigs as starters.
Budenholzer basically benched the veteran Plumlee, who only saw the floor for three minutes against the Knicks and had a blank stat line.
Nurkic and Towns are both 7-footers, but Nurkic is much less athletic, let alone on his two hurt ankles that he spoke about after the game. He was unable to close out and stop Towns’ shots in the paint, jump-hooks and turnaround jumpshots.
Budenholzer put his 6-6 rookie wing Ryan Dunn, who started for the sidelined Bradley Beal (left calf sprain), on Brunson and started the game hitting two 3s. It got ugly quick for Phoenix as New York jumped out to a 14-3 lead within the first three minutes. Brunson blew past Dunn into the paint throughout the game.
O’Neale finished with the team-high five 3s, shot 50% overall and from deep. But eight of his points came during the Suns’ 19-7 run to cut the lead to 11 midway through the third. Then Brunson and Hart led an 11-2 surge to push the margin back to 20 three minutes later, and entered the fourth quarter on a 110-93 lead. And Ighodaro (two points, three rebounds) played just 13 minutes, mostly in the second quarter.
