| On Tuesday, the final night of November this year, the Phoenix Suns won a game that gave them great cause for celebration. It was against the Golden State Warriors, it put them at the top of the Western Conference standings and it sealed both a perfect 16-0 month and a franchise record of 17 straight wins. “No loss November,” tweeted Devin Booker, whose first-half hamstring injury took only a little of the shine from a mightily impressive 104-96 win. “See how life goes?” said grinning center Deandre Ayton, just 23 but old enough to remember when things were vastly different. Toward the end of February 2019, the Suns also won a game that sparked significant happiness. It was at the Miami Heat and the reaction was one of joy, surprise and a monumental dose of relief. The reason: it was the end of a 17-game losing stretch and saved them from a winless month. “Thank God,” Ayton said back then. “Feels like we’re out,” added Booker. “We were in prison.” The turnaround of the Suns from being unequivocally the worst team in the Western Conference to an absolute juggernaut and genuine title contender is the league’s most remarkable modern story. Booker, Ayton and Mikal Bridges were all starters on that terrible 2018-19 squad that staggered to a 19-63 record, just as they are on this one that can’t remember what it feels like to lose. The addition of Chris Paul has been a giant boost but there is more to it than that, it’s just that no one can quite put their finger on precisely what it is. What we do know is this: after the COVID-19 shutdown of early 2020, the Suns returned on fire, winning eight straight but ultimately missing the playoffs. They then kept cooking, riding Booker and Paul to an eventual place in the NBA Finals against the Milwaukee Bucks last season. And this campaign, even as an ugly controversy around the conduct of owner Robert Sarver and a league investigation swirls, they’ve been simply unstoppable. “Until further notice the Phoenix Suns are the best team in basketball,” FS1’s Nick Wright said on “First Things First.” “They are, at the present moment, a perfectly constructed roster. They have Chris Paul to do the original Isaiah Thomas thing through three quarters. Then at the end of the game he can close. They have Booker to be the go-to volume scorer and then you have not just Ayton but Bridges, who has been sensational, to do all the dirty work. “Keep this in mind, the only reason they are not the defending champs is because (Giannis Antetokounmpo) had one of the greatest four-game stretches in the history of the sport.” Occasionally, NBA teams will go on mini win streaks that are largely padded by having stumbled across a soft part of the schedule. That’s not what has happened here. Seven of the Suns’ past 11 games have been on the road, including an eastern swing of four games in six days culminating with them knocking off the title-favorite Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center. Then Tuesday’s emphatic statement of throttling Steph Curry and the Warriors, who had been looking very much like the Warriors of old, and were nursing their own seven-game stretch of invincibility. “To me, this was just will and toughness,” Suns head coach Monty Williams said. “Not a lot of scheme, not a lot of play calls. Our guys just willed themselves to a victory.” Phoenix restricted Curry to 12 points on 4-of-21 from the field, the worst shooting performance of his career in games where he took at least 20 shots. It is things like that, the defensive excellence and the ability to deliver in clutch moments, that has many thinking the Suns are far from being just a team better suited to the regular season. Paul and Booker typically take over when the game gets tight and are remarkably productive when doing so. Both seem to move into an extra gear when it matters most and the rest of the lineup plays off them, a confident team that is beginning to feel indestructible. Who knows how much longer the winning streak can continue and if Booker’s hamstring is a temporary issue or something that keeps him out for a while. Either way, the Suns have sent a message to the field already, all while the rest of the league is still working through its early season headaches. As things stand right now, the Suns don’t have a problem, they are a problem, for everyone else. |
