TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
MINNEAPOLIS – Suns interim coach Jay Triano doesn’t have a playing rotation these days as much as he has a playing experiment.
Take Sunday’s 119-108 loss Sunday to the Minnesota Timberwolves, Phoenix’s third straight defeat. Triano opened the game at the Target Center with a big lineup, starting Tyson Chandler and Greg Monroe. He went small later, using Marquese Chriss and Dragan Bender together.
Jared Dudley became a playmaker. Bender was a center, trying to cover Karl-Anthony Towns. Josh Jackson started at shooting guard in place of an injured Devin Booker.
The only predictable thing was the unpredictability of it all.
“When you’re this young you’re going to experiment a lot,” said forward Jared Dudley, who had six points and six assists off the bench. “Sometimes it’s going to be a good experience, sometimes it’s going to be a bad experience. Right now we haven’t found a lineup that’s played well enough together that they’ve demanded playing time.”
There is one other predictable aspect to the Suns. Their defense just isn’t good enough. Phoenix has allowed at least 110 points in five of its past six games.
“I’m not upset with how we played offensively,” Triano said. “We weren’t very good defensively.”
Despite playing without Booker, who was sidelined with an inflamed right big toe, the Suns shot 50.6 percent from the field and, incredibly, 50 percent from 3point range. Mike James had a careerhigh 26 points and Phoenix’s bench scored a season-high 61 points. And Phoenix still lost by 11.
The biggest issue was how the Suns defended Minnesota’s pick-and-roll. Or, more appropriately, how they didn’t defend it. Time and time again the Suns’ big men got stuck out front trying to help out and either Towns or Taj Gibson rolled to the basket, able to clean up misses. Minnesota had 19 offensive rebounds (Towns and Gibson combined for 12) and scored 32 second-chance points.
“They clipped us on a bunch of screens and put us behind,” Triano said. “If it’s a switch guards have to roll up on the bigs’ legs. They’re as much as responsible for the defensive rebounding as anybody.”
Dudley said Phoenix’s weak-side defenders didn’t react well, often staying on their man rather than diving down into the lane to help out on the boards.
“We didn’t protect the paint nearly enough,” he said. “I wanted them to have to go to second or third options but we didn’t take anything away. Sometimes you have to leave your man weak side and go help with the bigs. You think you’re doing it right being on your guy but you’ll see on film that you can leave him. That takes a couple of years in the league to understand that.”
The Suns trailed by just three at halftime but the Timberwolves pounced in the first six minutes of the third quarter, stretching their lead to 13 on a Towns 3pointer. Phoenix never got closer than nine the rest of the way despite the bench – Bender, Troy Daniels, James, Chriss and Dudley – making 12 of 19 3point shots.
James made his first five shots and finished 10 of 20 from the field. His previous high this season was 13 field-goal attempts.
“The coaches told me to be a little more aggressive and look to score,” James said. “I just tried to do that.”
Triano said he liked the way James played with the second unit, noting that when he puts shooters on the floor like Bender and Dudley, “there’s space for him to attack.”
The Suns hope Booker will be able to play Tuesday in Chicago. That would return some semblance of normality to Phoenix’s lineup. But any sort of permanency shouldn’t be expected. The Suns are an experiment-in-process, Triano mixing and matching until he finds something that works, if not all the time, at least enough that he can trust it.
“I’m just trying to win a game,” he said.