Our Bright Side gives their opinions on the pending First Round matchup with Minnesota.
The postseason begins tomorrow. The second season. The season that truly matters. The Phoenix Suns are tasked with playing the Minnesota Timberwolves, a team they had no issue with throughout the regular season.
This isn’t the regular season.
The best defensive team in the league awaits, and our panel of Bright Side writers have their opinions on how this series will ultimately shape out.
Q: What strengths do the Suns have in this series? What weaknesses?
Holden Sherman: They have the experience edge. Even if it doesn’t feel like it, Anthony Edwards is still young, and outside of Mike Conley, no one in the Wolves’ top six has been to the Conference Finals before. Kevin Durant has played many games in the Conference Finals and NBA Finals and Devin Booker has been flexing those playoff muscles for a few years now and has had many different playoff experiences of late.
Brandon Duenas: The Suns have three players you can throw the ball to and get a bucket from. Minnesota has one… maybe two depending on how you feel about KAT, but given he’s a big I’d put Anthony Edwards as their only true off-the-dribble threat. Playoff basketball is about star players rising to the occasion and taking over. The firepower this team possesses gives them an advantage in that regard.
The weakness has to be the size disparity and defense. Minnesota is a lot bigger and they have a structurally better defense with more at their disposal on the personnel side on that end.
Matthew Lissy: The Suns have the ability to play smart and maintain possession with the ball when playing the Wolves this season, but the change of pace between Booker, KD, and Beal is where they are most dominant. The ability to find the hot hand and stick with it becomes too much for the opposing team. The Suns have adjusted to playing more physical without getting the foul calls and have kept cool in high-stress situations. Something that young Wolves guard, Anthony Edwards is still working his way towards.
The length of Rudy Golbert can be an issue defensively, but with the Suns have shown their speed, it isn’t as threatening after avoiding turnovers. Edwards for the Wolves can end up being the best player on the court during the series. If he takes that leap, this series is all Wolves.
John Voita: The Suns’ offense will always be their strength, for when you have a Big Three like Phoenix does, it makes them extremely hard to defend. Will we see more designed sets to attack the weaknesses of the Wolves’ D? Certainly. I expect less random isolation and more cerebral basketball.
It is their weaknesses that have frustrated us throughout the season, and they’re generally self-inflicted. It’s the turnovers, it’s the lack of focus, it’s the playing like you are better than you are. If the Suns can avoid this, can lockdown, and play up to expectations, they are a dangerous team.
Stephen PridGeon-Garner: Phoenix has the collective shot-making abilities, armed with personnel to poke and prod at particular pieces to the vaunted league-best defense that Minnesota has. Phoenix had the best offensive rating (129.3), and halfcourt offensive rating (113.2) in the entire league against the Timberwolves this season, while shooting 48.8% from deep on 28.7 3PA (2nd in the league, vs Minnesota) as well as compiling 29.3 assists a game (3rd).
The ways the Suns can stress the Timberwolves is unique from any other team and makes for a chess match of sorts in Minnesota deciding what shots they’ll live with. Meanwhile, Phoenix sees success vs Minnesota’s slower style of offense, which also includes players they can help off and a game plan that has seen them consistently generate success. Weakness-wise, the Suns and their turnovers are always on the mind. Additionally, their bouts with working against pressure off-ball, can stagnate flow and movement, thus growing their offense stale/archaic/robotic/predictable in stretches, and the Timberwolves are the best in the league at creating those exact, muddy-style flows on a game, in alignment with their defensive process.
Additionally, Minnesota is at its best when opponents are either haphazard with the ball, struggle against their pressure on and off it, or both. Both have ways they can dictate to the other, the ways the Suns can do so in spacing, movement, and shot-making ringing louder than the defensive way the Timberwolves can.
The Suns have had a defensive rating of 102.7 (2nd best) and showed consistency in defending with detail to their game plan (showing bodies in gaps, switches, containing the ball, helping off the players spaced around his led actions — then closing and recovering from there) vs Edwards, as well as defending with switches on movement, and doubles on Towns’ post touches. Whose terms this series is most frequently played on, especially in meaningful stretches/pockets, will determine who wins.
Q: Who is the X-factor for the Phoenix Suns in this series?
ML: It will be a team effort to win this series, but it is up to Bradley Beal to finish the Wolves off in the first round. The shooting that surrounds him when he weaves in and out of the paint and the defensive intensity that follows with his all-out effort to guard the best player all starts with his leadership. We have seen who has the heart and soul of this team. That is Beal
BD: Bradley Beal is the x-factor. Plain and simple. If he is going, this team is dangerous. A connected team is a dangerous team. This team has looked the most connected when Beal is doing at a high level on both ends.
JV: I wrote an entire piece about this very topic. If you didn’t spend the time reading that piece, I’ll go ahead and give you the cliff notes here: it’s the Nurk and GA.
SP-G: Grayson Allen and Jusuf Nurkic.
For Allen, with the way the Timberwolves have guarded him — “stashing” Anthony-Towns on him, the Suns need him to sustain efficiency and production in his usage. Early hit-ahead reps to attack Towns early in the shot clock, screening/executing handoffs to bring Towns into direction action, spacing/re-spacing/relocating to force Towns to execute dynamic closeouts and rotations — Allen can create chaos in upping the athletic demands of Towns defensively, ultimately eating away at his legs to stagnate his offensive tank.
In Nurkic, being that hub offensively to counter Gobert’s desire to stick in drop coverage, and pull him off the “porch” efficiently is important. Additionally, Nurkic’s defending without fouling, his advantage creation, finishing consistency, as well as how he’s spaced off the defense of Gobert are all important. How well he can impact the ball and show help when Edwards handles too — in the scheme — will be a barometer of the frequency Phoenix operates in pockets.
Q: Who leads the team in scoring in this series? Assists?
ML: Grayson Allen will benefit the most from the wide-open looks like he did for the majority of the season, but has a real chance to rack up the points and be an underdog when it comes to leading this team in points this series. His hot shooting has returned, and with all eyes on Booker and Beal, the great looks at the rim he will rack up 3-4 30-point games this series. Who will find him? Jusuf Nurkic.
Nurkic has the ability to pass against a slower team like the Wolves, who have made things look easy for the Suns this season. In this series, Nurkic will be giving haircuts at the top of the key finding cuts and wide-open shooters all series long.
BD: Devin Booker leads the Suns in scoring. I think he is that guy and will rise to the occasion, health permitted. Assists is a tricky one, but I could see Bradley Beal taking on some playmaking duties along with Durant and Book. As long as they are moving the ball, I don’t care who leads them in assists. Is there a healthy amount of ball movement? That’s when they are at their best.
JV: Kevin Durant will have his hands full as he will most likely be put into small-ball five situations. I just don’t see any way how Jusuf Nurkic doesn’t get into foul trouble and forces Frank Vogels‘s hand.
Therefore, it will be a Devin Booker series. Both from a points and an assists perspective, he will lead the team as they find creative ways to open up his scoring and passing abilities. A high usage rate is in store for Devin.
SP-G: Bradley Beal leads the Suns in scoring this series. Booker as well as Durant will see plenty of attention cued specifically to stagnating their rhythm/space/comfortability. With Beal, his downhill nature will naturally undo a ton of the protections the Timberwolves have in place. Plus, naturally, if/when he’s the fire starter, that means Booker/Durant/Allen/Gordon/O’Neale are all spaced around him — who will the Timberwolves want to consistently help off? Beal will also benefit from a playoff whistle, especially on the volume of time he’ll spend in the paint/at the rim. His values in being the third piece to their three-headed attack will prove its worth. Booker will lead in assists by a hair, over Beal.
Q: Who wins and in how many games? Why?
HS: Give me Phoenix in six games. It’s not that I think the Valley has turned a corner recently and now are legitimate title contenders, it’s that they’ve shown recently that they have a level of resiliency that resembles at least a team capable of getting to the second round. Minnesota has been shaky recently with Karl Towns just to the lineup and all three of the Suns and Wolves matchups this year have displayed Phoenix as a dominant force. In the playoffs you need your best players playing their best ball and Devin Booker and Kevin Durant have shown an ability to work in unison when it matters most and I don’t think Minnesota has the offensive firepower to combat them.
ML: It won’t be as easy in the playoffs, but I see the Suns winning in five games. Stealing a game in Phoenix in game three, the Wolves will still be outmatched when they return to Minnesota for game five, with the Suns ending things there. Did the Suns actually save the best for the Postseason? We hope so. I am not confident in my answer, but my hope is that the Suns really know how dominant they can be when playing at 100% this year.
BD: Suns in 6. Minnesota is tough, but I like the Suns in this matchup. Stealing one in Minnesota will be crucial to take back the home-court advantage. Let’s hope they set the tone from the start and take game one.
JV: I’m feeling like this is Suns and six. I know I should be more conservative; I should be more worried. But I feel we match up well with this team and I’ve bought into the style of play Phoenix displayed over the last 10 games.
Perhaps I’m naïve for doing so, but hope springs eternal. Which is a phrase I Still don’t fully understand.
SP-G: The regular season provided plenty, but the way scouting reports shift in concision for a playoff series makes these matchups a ton more nuanced than assuming the regular season happenings will translate in a “copy and paste” style. It is tough to recreate the scenarios that a regular season series presents. For all the successes sustained against Minnesota, please do not forget who this Suns team showed us to be in the 82-game totality of the regular season.
There are extreme highs and lows with this team, and, though I expect the playoffs scenario to benefit their processes, they still have a propensity with defensive spells at inopportune times, as well as with turnovers — both of which could occur at any moment as well as Minnesota being able to create these scenarios with their style of play. High variance remains a possibility with Phoenix, but I think this round-one matchup gives them room for error against an also flawed Minnesota team. Shot making (by way of movement first!) in tandem with sustained defensive activity boosts Phoenix enough.
Nonetheless, I do think the Suns win this series in 6 — with a great chance in this one going to 7.
What are your thoughts on this series? How do you see it playing out? Who leads in points and in assists? What are the strengths you’re relying on and what weaknesses worry you?
Let us know when the comments below, and as always, thank you for reading Brightside.