Are we collectively overlooking the Suns as the obvious favorite to win the NBA championship? Last year, they were a very good regular-season team that few picked to go to the Finals. They would have won the whole thing if not for some insane plays and the adamantium knee of Giannis Antetokounmpo. They’ve been even better this year, and they’re still not getting the respect they deserve.
The Suns turned in a historic regular season, becoming the 25th team to win at least 64 games. Of that group, 18 went to the Finals and 14 won it all. They were even more impressive when compared with their peers. As pointed out by Sam Amick at The Athletic, they were the fifth team to win their conference by eight or more games. All four of the others won a ring.
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The Suns have the individual talents to dominate tons of different aspects of the game. Need star power? They have two top-15 talents in Devin Booker and Chris Paul. On the defensive side of the ball, they have a potential Defensive Player of the Year in Mikal Bridges and a dominant rim protector in DeAndre Ayton. Their bench is led by potential Sixth Man of the Year Cam Johnson. And pulling all the strings is the National Basketball Coaches Association’s pick for Coach of the Year, Monty Williams.
The Suns haven’t done anything crazy or innovative to drill their way to 64 wins. Everything that they’ve accomplished in the regular season has been the result of extremely high-level execution. Many other teams use the elbow sets and Spain pick-and-rolls that the Suns rely on, but nobody does it better.
That precision has made the Suns unstoppable in close games. They finished the year as a top-four clutch team in NBA history, both in terms of win percentage and net rating.
Paul is the team’s tiger mom. He has demanded perfection during winning time. The Suns run a killer pick-and-roll down the stretch called Snap (it’s also called Spain or Stack by other teams, which Paul will signal for with a snap of his fingers. They have so many wrinkles out of it that it’s impossible to stop.
Once more with feeling!
Same play, same result, different bucket.
By my count, the Suns are 19 of 31 running Snap in the clutch this season. SIXTY ONE PERCENT. pic.twitter.com/uVadFQiX0b
— David (@theIVpointplay) April 9, 2022
If that pick-and-roll doesn’t generate anything and Paul is forced into an isolation situation late in the clock, the Suns are still in great shape. He can get his midrange jumper off at any time, which he cans at a 55 percent clip. Only Nikola Jokic has shot it better this year. He will also kill teams with his rip-through move if they fall asleep guarding him.
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Paul isn’t even the Suns’ best offensive player down the stretch. That honor belongs to Devin Booker, who should finish top five in MVP voting. Booker’s been the best clutch scorer in the league, nailing 57 percent of his field goals, 41 percent of his 3s, and almost never turning the ball over.
On the defensive side of the ball, Bridges is perhaps the best perimeter defender in the entire league. The synergy between Bridges and Ayton defensively has also been tremendous. Teams have not been able to run pick-and-rolls with those two guarding together.
The road to the Conference Finals shouldn’t be too bad for the Suns. They’ll play either the Jazz or the Mavericks in the second round. They’ve done very well in those matchups, posting a combined 6-1 record with a plus-39 point differential in the regular season. Luka Doncic will be the best player in the series if they play the Mavs, but his calf injury is a wild card that will make an upset even harder to pull off.
The Grizzlies are going to be a much tougher test if those teams meet in the Western Conference Finals. The Suns were just 1-2 against the younger and more athletic team, including an April loss when the Grizzlies were missing Ja Morant, Steven Adams, Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr. That might be their worst matchup of any team in the league.
The East is going to be more of a wild card. The Suns swept the Nets and Sixers during the regular season but split their matchups against both the Celtics and Bucks.
Either way, the Suns should be favored in every matchup in the playoffs. They’ll have home-court advantage for any potential Game 7s, and they have all of their plays down to a science. If they stay healthy, then it’s their ring to lose.