2024-04-09 03:26:24
Bradley Beal’s vision isn’t blurry. He sees what’s awaiting his team.
The Phoenix Suns not only have the same record as the Pelicans after Sunday’s 113-105 home loss to New Orleans, but they’re also just a game ahead of the Kings and 1½ games in front of the Lakers.
Phoenix (46-32) has the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Pelicans (46-32) to stay sixth in the West, but it faces the NBA’s third-toughest remaining schedule starting Tuesday against the Clippers (50-28) to begin a home-away back-to-back against them.
“We’ve got a playoff series coming up,” Beal said after Sunday’s loss. “If we’re not locked in, it could get really ugly for us. We’ve got a tough team on Tuesday, Wednesday. We’ve got to be ready to go.”
The Suns are 0-2 this season against the Clippers, who blasted them, 138-111, in their last matchup Jan. 8 in Los Angeles as Phoenix had its Big 3 of Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Beal for that one.
The Suns are 23-14 with Booker, Durant and Beal in the starting lineup.
“Every game is important to everybody now,” Durant said after Sunday’s loss. “It’s do-or-die for everybody around this time of the year.”
The Suns are once again in a must-win situation to stay sixth starting Tuesday against a team that’s proven to so far to be a bad matchup. The Clippers have multiple guys who can score off the dribble in Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, James Harden, Russell Westbrook and Norman Powell.
The Clippers are coming off an 120-118 thriller Sunday against Cleveland as they rallied from being down 26 points midway through the third. George hit the game-winning shot with 7.1 seconds left to complete a 39-point night that included 11 rebounds and seven assists.
Leonard has missed the last four games for the Clippers with right knee inflammation.
The Suns can secure the sixth spot without any help by winning their last four games. Even if New Orleans won its last four games, the Suns have the tiebreaker over them.
The Suns haven’t won four games in a row since January when going on a seven-game win streak.
The Pelicans have the 16th toughest remaining schedule as their next three games are on the road against the Blazers (21-57), Kings (45-33) and Warriors (43-35). New Orleans closes out their regular season at home versus the Lakers (45-34).
“I just want to start off by thanking God,” said Pelicans coach Willie Green, a former lead assistant for the Suns (2019-21). “Giving glory to God. That is a fun team to have an opportunity to coach. Those guys are resilient. They know what we are playing for. This team has beat us twice, pretty similarly. Booker hitting incredible shots. We wanted to come out tonight and play with a level of toughness that we know is up to our standards and that is what we did.”
The Suns follow the Clippers back-to-back games with two road games to end the regular season – Friday against the Kings and Sunday versus the West-leading Timberwolves (54-24). The Phoenix-Sacramento matchup will decide their head-to-head tiebreaker as they’ve split their first four games. The Suns and Kings played an extra game after losing in the In-Season Tournament quarterfinals.
A 4-0 finish might even land Phoenix the fifth spot. The Suns are only two games behind Dallas, but the Mavericks have the head-to-head tiebreaker. Phoenix would need Dallas to go 1-3 in their last four.
Hard to imagine the Mavs crashing and burning like that. They’re 9-1 in their last 10 games and have the 26th toughest remaining schedule.
Dallas plays two of the four worst teams in the NBA to end the regular season in the Pistons (13-65) and Hornets (19-59). Detroit has the NBA’s worst record. The Mavericks are at the Heat (43-35) in the second of a road back-to-back after Charlotte, then take on the Pistons at home before ending their regular season at the Thunder (53-25).
So, sixth is ideally the best seed the Suns can obtain. They could keep the Kings and Lakers at bay by winning three of their last four with the win coming against the Kings to give them a 49-33 record.
The Lakers can only win 48 games at the most since they only have three left. They have the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Suns.
A win over Sacramento gives Phoenix the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Kings, but the Suns wouldn’t need it because they’d have one more win than Sacramento. The Kings have the ninth-toughest remaining schedule while the Lakers have the 15th-toughest.
Sacramento plays its final road game of the regular season at Oklahoma City and finishes at home against New Orleans, Phoenix and Portland. The Lakers face Golden State next for their last home game of the regular season and close out their 82-game schedule on the road against the Grizzlies and Pelicans.
The Pelicans would have to go 4-0 to mess up that 3-1 scenario for the Suns with a win over the Kings to capture sixth in the West.
A missed opportunity vs. Pelicans
The Suns could’ve further improved their chances of securing the sixth spot with a win Sunday over the Pelicans. They instead blew an early 13-point lead, allowed eight 3s in the second quarter to trail by six at the half and couldn’t sustain a one-point lead with 7:27 left in the game after trailing by 12.
“Hats off to them, (the Pelicans) competed, but we didn’t have that same fight to want to win that they did,” said Beal, who scored a game-high 33 points, hitting 7-of-8 from 3.
Beal scored 15 of his 33 in the fourth, connecting on all three of his 3-point attempts in the quarter.
“He was aggressive,” Durant said. “He played with emotion, passion, and energy. He always does, but it showed a little bit more on his face and in his body language. Making shots like that is just exciting for everybody, fadeaways out the corner, pull-up threes, He was incredible. That is what we are going to need from him going forward.”
The Pelicans stopped Booker’s string of three consecutive 50-point games against them as he finished with 25 points with only five in the fourth quarter. New Orleans was more physical with Booker less than a week after Green called out his team by saying they played “soft” against the four-time All-Star.
“I asked him to let me guard him,” Pelicans backup guard Jose Alvarado said. “Let me frustrate him. Let me take him off fouls, let me get him tired. He’s a good player, he’s going to score but I just tried to make everything difficult for him and we did a good job on him, I guess, for him to have 25 points. I mean if I had 25, I thought I would’ve had a good game, so we made sure it was a bad 25. But he earned it. I wanted that assignment.”
Suns coach Frank Vogel saw it a little differently than Alvarado.
“You saw more physical or more fouling?” Vogel said. “It was playoff intensity. They fouled the hell out of him every time he tried to take a step. They were grabbing him and that led to some of the turnovers.”
Booker finished the game with a team-high four turnovers.
“That’s playoff intensity,” Vogel continued. “We welcome that. Booker still got off. He just didn’t make his 3s (0-for-6 from deep).”
CJ McCollum scored a team-high 31 points while Zion Williamson posted 29 with 12 coming in the fourth quarter. Williamson also cranked out 10 rebounds, seven assists and five blocks.
“He has been getting better and better defensively as the season progressed,” Green said. “Zion was everywhere. He was guarding the ball. He was blocking shots. Coming up with big time offensive rebounds. Attacking the basket. Making his free throws. Incredible performance. He carried us.”
More: Pelicans’ Zion Williamson dominates Suns, race to avoid play-in continues
Now the Suns are once again in a must-win situation to stay sixth starting Tuesday against a team that’s proven to so far be a bad matchup. The Clippers have multiple guys who can score off the dribble in Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, James Harden, Russell Westbrook and Norman Powell.
Leonard will miss a fifth straight game Tuesday with right knee inflammation while Daniel Theis is listed as questionable with left thumb sprain. As for the Suns, Jusuf Nurkic is also listed questionable with a right ankle sprain he’s been playing through while Damion Lee (knee) remains out as he hasn’t played all season.
The Clippers are coming off an 120-118 thriller Sunday against Cleveland as they rallied from being down 26 points midway through the third. George hit the game-winning shot with 7.1 seconds left to complete a 39-point night that included 11 rebounds and seven assists.
Have opinions about the current state of the Suns? Reach Suns Insider Duane Rankin at [email protected] or contact him at 480-787-1240. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @DuaneRankin.
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