Suns Hope to Stay Healthy as Postseason Nears
PHOENIX -- The Phoenix Suns are slowly figuring things out.
After a tough stretch of injuries to begin the season, Phoenix's trio of Devin Booker, Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant have played a mere 26 games together according to the NBA.
Phoenix banked on their stars being healthy and forming continuity ahead of their postseason run in 2023-24. So far that hasn't happened how they drew it up.
Yet as the regular season begins to tick down, the Suns have been able to piece together important building blocks to the rotation with coach Frank Vogel experimenting and tinkering as Phoenix looks to get themselves higher in the Western Conference Standings.
“Yeah, it’s important. The more games we can get with everybody healthy, because health is not the only piece that we need to be at our best moments in the playoffs," Vogel said after the team's win over Charlotte.
"We have to have health to find the right rhythm and build the right habits, and you know, having Royce (O’Neale) now with the full health of the rest of the guys is something we are really looking forward to seeing what it looks like.”
At 39-28, the Suns are clinging on to the West's No. 7 seed after completing a back-to-back on the road. Next up are the Milwaukee Bucks for the fourth and final installment on their road trip.
“It’s a tough challenge to play back-to-back and then play a new game two days later is a scheduling challenge. We’ve been in this situation coming out of the All-Star break, and we played the Lakers in a new game – similar situation, third game in three and a half days, and we played a great basketball game. So, we’ve got to draw on that experience and come in and play a great game against Milwaukee," said Vogel.
It's rare to see a team make a deep push into the postseason after just being thrown together, let alone missing various amounts of time in the regular season in their first campaign together.
Yet the NBA continues to prove anything is possible, and the Suns certainly feel as if they've got championship pedigree to make some noise.
