Inside the Stats: The Suns' Midseason Makeover

These aren’t your father’s Phoenix Suns. Or your older brother’s. Heck, they hardly resemble the early-season version of themselves.

Pinning that on the eight new players on the roster is both right and wrong. The Suns have changed far more than the names on the game programs. Their style of play is drastically different.

Oh sure, Phoenix is still uptempo. How they fuel that speed and ultimately convert it, however, is almost a completely altered process.

That’s right. The Phoenix Suns are now a defense-first team.

That’s how things have panned out thus far, at least. The Suns aren’t concerned with the drastic drop-off in offensive production. With half the roster overhauled by midseason deals and signings, the offense figured to require the most time to stabilize.

In the past, waiting on the offense to return might have derailed Phoenix completely. Instead, they’ve ripped off four straight wins and are playing some of their best ball of the season.

“The makeup of our team has shifted a little bit,” Hornacek said.

A handful of unplanned developments took place explain how that happened, as well as why it’s been led to a new identity that is enough to overcome an offensively off-night.

Phoenix will be better when Brandon Knight returns from a sprained ankle. Young, All-Star-caliber guards with Knight’s all-around skill set are rare talents, and they can’t help but improve a team’s night-to-night odds.

His absence, however, forced Hornacek to experiment with his lineup. With Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas gone, the Suns’ head coach had to get creative. Most of his depth consisted of bigger wing players, so he went with the one who had some starting experience already: Marcus Morris.

Starting Morris essentially shifted P.J. Tucker to shooting guard, where his vastly improved jump shot and defensive quickness allowed him settle in without too much difficiulty. He isn’t the creator/facilitator that Knight is, but Hornacek found out two big things this lineup does bring to the table.

One, the defense doesn’t have to scramble quite as much. On back-to-back nights, Tucker held high-volume scorers James Harden and Monta Ellis to a combined 9-for-41 from the field. When teams try to run screens and force a switch, Phoenix isn’t overly phased, since Marcus Morris is tall enough (6-9) and quick enough to gamely guard whoever Tucker was previously manning for at least one possession.

The other bonus of this lineup appears at the end of the defensive possession. Tucker’s size and appetite on the glass allowed him to man a fair share of power forward in the past. Pairing that skill set in the backcourt with Eric Bledsoe – and elite glass-eater at point guard in his own right – gives the Suns a capable rebounder at every position on the floor.

“I really like that lineup with me and Marcus at the two and three,” Tucker said. “I don’t think we’ve lost any rebounding battle against any team, win or loss, since we went to that lineup.”

That isn’t just a shift. That’s a full-blown 180.

Phoenix’s deadline deals shipped out two of their better perimeter scorers, forcing Hornacek to roll out his younger talent-in-waiting in an attempt to fill in the gaps.

T.J. Warren has been billed as an “old-school” scorer since breaking out at North Carolina State. Other than a Euro-step he likes to break out in transition, Warren doesn’t really have a “go-to” move, instead relying on the flow of the possession and the immediate situation to dictate when and how he’ll get his shots.

He will stand in the corners, but not as a ready-and-waiting three-point threat. Instead he waits to see the moment his defender’s attention shifts from him to whoever is handling the ball. Once that happens, Warren is gone, cutting down the baseline. He’s also good as a semi-trailer on the break, sniffing out the gaps in a partially set-up defense. This has breathed some much-needed movement into a Suns offense that had grown just a little too dependent on straight-up isolations or pick-and-rolls. It’s also uncannily veteran mindset for a 21-year-old rookie, one that has proven contagious to the rest of the team.

“Other guys are moving better,” Hornacek said. “We’re not just standing around…if guys are moving, all of the sudden guys are looking for that a little bit more and you’re getting a few more assists.”

Archie Goodwin is even younger despite his one extra year of experience, but that one year has made a big difference. A natural slasher, Goodwin has learned to downshift just enough in order to maintain control and survey his options as a backup point guard to Bledsoe. He’ll always drive if the chance presents itself, but he’s shown a much-improved sense of when to get the ball moving if his side of the floor is bottled up. He’s still very selective about when to hoist one up from downtown, but that selectiveness has led to a sneaky improvement in his three-point shooting (37.0 percent).

Warren and Goodwin average less than half-a-three per game between them, but Hornacek has been happy to swap out a little spacing for more aggression and free throws.

“It’s a different type of scoring,” he said. “When you had some of the other guys in there, you’re hoping they’re making jump shots. If they didn’t make the jump shots, we weren’t getting anything. These guys, T.J. and Archie, they take the ball to the basket. When you’re comparing the jump shooting, obviously the other guys are better, but they get to the hole and give us a good mix of taking it in there and maybe getting some free throws. Our team has probably shifted a little bit. We’re not that outside shooting team where we’re looking to get 12 to 15 three-point makes if we can.”

Again, Knight’s return will inject some life into the Suns’ offense, as will more familiarity between teammates old and new. Hornacek’s hope, however, is that the defense/aggression remains after the offense gets going again.