Suns Face Most Difficult Week of Season
PHOENIX -- The Phoenix Suns are once again riding the waves of a turbulent season.
It seemed like a strong possibility the Suns would get in position to be within striking distance of earring home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs - now it appears as if they will be clawing just to avoid the play-in tournament over the final six weeks of the season.
This week might just be the most difficult of the season when adding in the context of potentially missing Devin Booker for the duration of the week - the Suns need to make the best of the situation ahead regardless.
Tuesday: at Denver Nuggets
The Nuggets are finally coming into their own.
They are currently riding a six-game win streak since the NBA's return to play following the All-Star break - and now trail the one-seed Oklahoma City Thunder by only half a game as of March 4.
The Nuggets have convincingly beaten four consecutive teams with winning records and sit at 24-5 at home.
All of this coupled with the expected absence of Booker will make this game a tough one for Phoenix to pull off.
The Suns certainly have the talent to get it done, but the matchup slightly favors Denver, and the home-court advantage factor is a definite factor that goes Denver's way.
Thursday: vs Toronto Raptors
The Raptors always seem to be a difficult matchup for the Suns regardless of team quality.
Phoenix has posted a 4-5 record against Toronto since the 2019-20 season - likely due to Toronto's general identity being a good match for the Suns.
The Raptors will be without All-Star Scottie Barnes and perhaps key role player Bruce Brown for the contest - this could be a development that ultimately favors Phoenix especially if Bradley Beal can ride the momentum of his 30-point performance last night.
Saturday: vs Boston Celtics
The Saturday night primetime contest against Boston will be the ultimate test for Phoenix.
Boston is shaping up to be a historically great team by all accounts and metrics - they just secured their third 50-point victory of the season against the Golden State Warriors on Sunday.
They also are near the top of the list of highest positive point differentials in league history and have elite offensive/defensive profiles alike.
The Jayson Tatum-led squad has been dominant nearly all season - they will almost certainly be considered the front runner to win the NBA title come playoff time - and will be possibly the biggest test the Suns face all year.
With 21 games remaining, guys like Bradley Beal know what's at stake.
"We got 20 games left. It is a good amount of games to get us going and get us going right before the playoffs. I think that will be really good for us, but we do got to get rolling," said Beal.
"We can’t keep talking about it, we can't keep coming to you guys and say, ‘We got time, we will fix it.’ We got to do it. We have our team now going into the playoffs, we got to hit this steamroller head on. We got a lot of playoff teams coming in here ready to go. It is a good challenge for us.”
