PHOENIX — It was always a matter of when and not if the Phoenix Suns’ limitations in a shorthanded state would reveal themselves, and Monday’s 114-92 loss to the Houston Rockets was the first night through their recent surge that they took center stage.
Phoenix (11-7) is already down Grayson Allen (right quad contusion), Jalen Green (right hamstring strain) and Ryan Dunn (right wrist sprain), plus Mark Williams was out on the second game of a back-to-back. The Suns have exceptionally still found ways to remain productive offensively in spite of these absences, but that was halted on Monday.
The Suns only managed 11 assists, seven of which came in the first half. It was only the fourth time in the NBA this season that a team failed to crack 15, per Stathead, and is the second-lowest mark overall behind the Los Angeles Clippers’ 10 on Oct. 28. In franchise history, it’s tied for the worst assist total since December 2017.
“Not a great number. … Some of it was them, some of it was us,” Suns head coach Jordan Ott said. “Could just never really get to it. Just clunking through it, clunking through it.”
Houston (11-4) was selling out extra space off the ball to deny Devin Booker room, which allowed shooters to get open and the Suns to find space via proper ball rotations. The issue is, that takes time, because the Rockets are a properly great squad that nails all those required rotations in that aggressive look that is aided by their outstanding athleticism and length. That slowed down a whole lot of possessions to keep the pace of the game much more in the Rockets’ favor.
Booker was 5-of-13 for 18 points with five assists and six turnovers. It was his third straight dud, and you can choose-your-own-adventure to how you want to decipher that, but the three games in four days to me showcased how much this load will wear on him over the full year if he doesn’t get reinforcements back soon.
What the Rockets do right now is present a challenge unlike any other basketball has seen in recent memory, and it clearly affected Monday’s game in a different way than normal.
Houston entered Monday grabbing 40.9% of its misses, an offensive rebounding rate that is 10% above the league average. For reference, they were at 36.6% last season and the league leaders in the previous five seasons before that down-ticked from 33.3% in the 2023-24 campaign to 30% in 2019-20.
In an era where our brains as basketball fans are trained to believe that spacing is king and there being a prerequisite for a certain amount of 3-point shooting talent on the floor, Houston proves that is false. It often plays two centers together, one of which doesn’t shoot 3s at all (Steven Adams) and another only takes 2.8 a night (Alperen Sengun), all with a lead playmaker in Amen Thompson that is a non-shooter going 7-for-32 (21.9%) from deep this season.
Old-school hoops-watchers will see this as a nod back to the good ol’ days of two true bigs on the floor, but the key difference here is the Rockets are doing this while insulated in the modern game with a tremendous difference in how quick the game is played and the caliber of athletes it deploys.
Houston’s bet is the math trade-off is worthwhile. It is winning that bet so far, all while its best player doesn’t even contribute there (Kevin Durant has five offensive rebounds this year).
But the Suns actually held up here, even without Williams. Offensive rebounds were a 12-12 draw. Instead, it was Houston’s under-discussed defense that ruined Phoenix’s night by forcing 21 turnovers to produce 26 of its points.
With those giveaways, a Rockets team that typically plays slower bested the Suns 18-4 in fastbreak points. Phoenix’s own lack of tempo was something Ott attributed to the rebounding fears.
“This is what happens when you face teams with really good offensive glass. You worry so much about a defensive rebound that you can’t get the ball out and up the floor,” Ott said.
Ime Udoka’s Rockets teams have a great standard on defense, and for all the attention some of the other areas get, the Rockets came into Monday sixth in defensive rating outside of garbage time. That ability dictated how this Suns loss came to be.
These are the types of challenges that await the Suns over this next month in the schedule and they weren’t good enough to pass it on Monday.
The Suns were down nine at the half before Houston’s paint presence offensively really ratcheted up to spark its offense. A beautiful possession that ended in a give-and-go between Jabari Smith Jr. and Thompson bumped Phoenix’s deficit to 15 points just under five minutes into the second half. With the Suns on the second night of a back-to-back, it would be gut-check time, a time we know this group thrives in when a lot of others would typically wither away.
They scratched and clawed to keep it a game, an 84-75 Rockets lead entering the fourth quarter, but Booker’s last rest actually looked the part that it hasn’t as of late. A few Phoenix possessions ended with Royce O’Neale trying to create his own shot, and while he’s stepped up there this year to do well, this (again) is a new level of opposition.
Houston expanded its lead to 14, and with over nine minutes left in the game, Booker had to check back in to potentially play 40 minutes after playing 38 the night prior. That didn’t steady the ship, and Phoenix emptied its bench with 3:08 remaining.
To start by sending well wishes to Durant and his family as he tends to a personal matter, his absence essentially brought an abrupt version of the finality his first game back in Phoenix was supposed to bring.
The Rockets won’t be back in the Valley until April 7. That’s over four months from now. While Durant playing in that game would still bring some juice, the buildup now inevitably flames out, and if his first meeting comes against the Suns in Houston (either on Dec. 5 or Jan. 7), even that lacks some real gusto too. We’ve seen how much the Suns have already moved on in just a month, so imagine that feeling by the near end of an entire season.
That didn’t mean we were going to be spectators for a night lacking someone skipping around 14 boxes of fireworks stacked on top of each other while waving a lit match, though.
That someone is, as always, Dillon Brooks.
When Brooks confirmed on Sunday there was extra motivation for him with this one, he specifically shouted out Udoka as someone he was excited to see. Both guys, for a lack of a better term, are hard-asses, so it’s not a leap to imagine how their personalities could have clashed over two years.
Udoka, however, didn’t give off that vibe pregame, saying there’s love and respect for how Brooks helped change Houston’s culture, with recent run-ins at certain events since the trade that would indicate to Udoka that Brooks was speaking more endearingly. (For what it’s worth, even Udoka himself asked if Brooks was saying it in a good or a bad way, so who knows really.)
The two had a few quick exchanges throughout the game that appeared to be in good fun and Brooks made sure after some baskets to look the way of his old bench. Udoka was fine with letting Brooks beat him and Brooks did his best to try to, putting together 29 points on 11-of-22 shooting.
“A good fight. We’ll see ’em in December,” Brooks said. “We got some learning to do.”
Brooks has been terrific and is having a career year. At the same time, his individual scoring will eventually offset itself naturally if it isn’t triggering ball movement when Phoenix is so shorthanded. He had zero assists and has now had two or fewer in eight of his 12 games. That’s not a problem for the offense once it gets back to full strength and when the offensive movement is up to par in any state.
Williams’ absence on the second game of a back-to-back, the three other injuries and the Houston matchup made it the closest we’ve gotten to No. 10 overall pick Khaman Maluach having a shot at legitimate rotation minutes. The Rockets being as shorthanded as they were also by default made third-string center Clint Capela more important, so size was going to be out there even longer.
Instead, it was fellow rookie Rasheer Fleming that got a look. This second chance in the rotation for him was much worse than his first, with Fleming committing three fouls in four minutes in the second quarter and committing a few first-year-player errors that cost Phoenix points. He did not play in the second half until garbage time. Once again, this is the juggling Ott and his staff will navigate the cost-benefit analysis of inside the short- and long-term picture.
Williams sitting was a reminder of how, even with how well he is playing right now, he eventually has to be a guy that can play back-to-backs (while staying healthy) to bring full value to a team. There was a major drop-off in performance from the other centers and that will keep costing the Suns games for the time being.
Ott was blunt in his assessment of the play by the 5s, saying, “We need all three of ’em. That’s the reality. We know it. At times, one of ’em has it going over the other, but we need all three of ’em.”
In addition to no Durant (personal reasons), Houston was down Tari Eason (right oblique strain), Dorian Finney-Smith (ankle surgery), Jae’Sean Tate (personal reasons) and Fred VanVleet (right ACL tear).
Thompson was phenomenal, posting 28 points, seven rebounds, eight assists and four turnovers. Ball-handlers that live in the paint continue to be a weakness for the Suns to defend.
Former Sun Aaron Holiday added 22 points off the bench, hitting six 3s.