The good news for the Phoenix Suns is that of the three teams that appear to be jostling for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, they are the only one with a winning record on the road.
The Suns are 13-12 away from US Airways Center, whereas the New Orleans Pelicans are just 9-16 when they leave the comforts of the Smoothie King Center and the Oklahoma City Thunder have managed just a 10-17 mark when they aren’t playing at Chesapeake Energy Arena.
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The bad news for Phoenix is that none of the Western Conference playoff contenders have played worse in their own building than have the Suns.
A heartbreaking 102-101 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies Monday night dropped Phoenix to 15-10 at home—the worst of the 10 teams in the Western playoff picture (we’re not counting the 19-29 Denver Nuggets or any of the various flotsam that follow).
There’s no shame to losing to Memphis at any venue—the Grizzlies have the third-best record in the NBA at 36-12.
But at some point, there may be losses at home that the Suns find themselves regretting, particularly if they end up on the outside looking in for the second straight year (actually it’s been since 2010 since the Suns made the playoffs, but last year they were actually in the hunt until the final days of the season).
Phoenix has losses at home to Sacramento (17-29), Charlotte (21-27), Orlando (15-36), Miami (21-26), Detroit (18-30) and Milwaukee (26-22).
All of those losses came before the New Year, but the NBA has this annoying habit of counting them anyway.
Six of their 10 losses at home have come to teams that will be watching the playoffs on TV or are fringe playoff teams in the wretched East.
And let me tell you, when you’re holding off an Oklahoma City team that has only had Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook together on the court for 560 of a possible 2,304 minutes this season—six bad losses at home can buy a helluva lot of regret.
Monday night’s loss completed a season sweep at the hands of the Grizzlies and was their seventh straight loss to Memphis in the last two seasons.
That is a particularly stinging fact to Suns fans, who remember that it was a loss at home to Memphis in Game No. 81 last season that ended their dream of a playoff berth one season removed from going 25-57.
And some of the numbers from last night read like the teaser line for a future 30-for-30 documentary:
"What if I told you the Phoenix Suns held Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol and Jeff Green to a combined 14-for-38 shooting night … and still managed to lose the game?"
Gasol, the fringe MVP candidate, was harassed into a 4-for-11 performance and 15 points. Randolph went 6-for-15 and finished with 19. Green wasn’t in double figures until the fateful three-point play that ultimately decided the outcome with 4.5 seconds remaining.
The Hydra combination of point guards Goran Dragic, Eric Bledsoe and Isaiah Thomas teamed up for 60 points on 24-of-49 shooting, which is nice.
But the Suns continue to get not much from their bigs and that could be a problem down the stretch.
Brandan Wright did his thing Monday—5-for-6 with 11 points and six rebounds in 22 minutes—but Alex Len got just two shots, missed them both, and had seven boards and two blocks in 22 minutes. Miles Plumlee was 1-for-1 in 11 minutes with three offensive rebounds.
The Suns are built to be a perimeter oriented team that thrives on the drive and kick game.
But defensively, Phoenix is near the bottom of the league in rim defense—opponents are shooting 61.7 percent in the restricted area, which is tied with the Pistons for 24th in the NBA—and only two teams do worse defending the corner 3 than Phoenix, which is allowing 42.7 percent from that area (only Dallas and New York are worse).
If there’s been a noticeable dropoff from last season to this for the Suns offensively, it is that corner 3. Last season, Phoenix hit the corner 3 at a rate of 40.4 percent, good for eighth in the NBA.
This year’s rate 37.5 percent ranks just 18th.
The Suns will play four more games before the All-Star break begins—at Portland on Thursday, home for Utah on Friday, at Sacramento on Sunday and home for Houston on Feb. 10.
They will close February with a pair of home games against teams in their neighborhood in the playoff race—Oklahoma City on Feb. 26 and San Antonio on Feb. 28.
The Suns are on pace to finish 25-16 at home.
There hasn’t been a Western Conference team make the playoffs with 16 home-court losses or more since 2006-07, when both the Los Angeles Lakers (25-16) and Denver Nuggets (23-18) made it.
Of course, they didn’t make it very far—the Lakers went out in five games in the first round, splitting their two home games and going 0-3 at, coincidentally, Phoenix.
The Nuggets, meanwhile, ambushed the Spurs in Game 1 before losing in five games—losing both of their home games, of course.
The Suns have 16 home games and 16 road games remaining (symmetric, that), with 10 of those games at home against opponents with better than .500 records at present.
But given those six losses listed earlier from November and December, maybe Phoenix’s biggest worry should be those six remaining home games against teams that are below the break-even mark.
Statistical data via basketball-reference.com and NBA.com/Stats.
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