Phoenix Suns: Three Keys to Victory vs Nuggets in Game 2

The Phoenix Suns need a win tonight, as heading back home with an 0-2 deficit against the Denver Nuggets (the West's No. 1 seed) isn't exactly in the formula of success.

Game 1 showed promise - until the second quarter, where Denver took control of the game and never looked back.

Now, the Suns find pressure on themselves to produce. Here's how that can happen:

Phoenix Suns: Three Keys to Victory vs Nuggets in Game 2

All Gas, No Breaks

The likes of Devin Booker and Kevin Durant playing heavy minutes isn't uncommon, especially with Phoenix's lack of depth to allow Monty Williams to sit certain players.

There's a fairly large gap of rest between tonight and Friday's Game 3, giving the Suns a good chunk of time to rest and regroup ahead of their two-game stint at home.

That should be quite the incentive for Williams to push his starters more than usual tonight, leaving little room for time off the court. Phoenix's starting five (Okogie and Craig can be interchanged whenever) needs to be on the court as much as possible to give the Suns the best chance to win.

Phoenix was always going to need massive minutes and output from their stars in order to win the Finals. With an opportunity to steal a game in Denver, the Suns must ensure their best play a minimum of 40 minutes.

Deandre Ayton

Look, nobody expects Deandre Ayton to play like prime Shaq or Dwight Howard. Ayton's game isn't similar to theirs, and his versatility/athleticism has been needed at times compared to simply being a brute anchor down low.

Even when lining up across from Nikola Jokic, no Suns fan is expecting Ayton to average 20-20 each night.

However, we can start with effort.

Warriors won the chip with Kevon Looney as their starting center making $5M/year.

Deandre Ayton makes $32M/year. This was him yesterday… https://t.co/Xt1pO224pt
— Khiz (@KhizHoop) April 30, 2023

Kevin Durant and Devin Booker can do whatever they want on any given night, but the Suns won't have a shot at winning this series unless Ayton can turn things up a notch.

Jokic is great, but he's not exactly known for his defensive capabilities. Ayton doesn't live on a team that will allow him to get 30 shots up each night, but he still has to assert himself offensively and take advantage of the spacing that guys like Durant and Booker afford him in the paint.

Also - going back to the whole effort thing - the Nuggets finished with 16 offensive rebounds. A lot of those come down to hustle and heart. Ayton has the size and length to come down with those, and there's no reason he shouldn't be the leading rebounder on a nightly basis.

Three's Company

The Nuggets led the NBA in field goal percentage during the regular season, so their spectacular shooting effort in Game 1 wasn't too surprising.

The Suns have never been a hefty three-point shooting team, that's just not their identity. Everybody loves the "midrange mafia" nickname until opposing teams are both taking more three-pointers and sinking them at better rates - you don't have to be a statistician to know those add up more quickly than two-point shots.

Denver went 16-37 from behind the arc last game whereas Phoenix went just 7-23.

Both the quality and number of three-pointers need to increase for the Suns if the Nuggets are going to continue hitting their shots.

The great JJ Redick shared his concern about the Suns prior to the start of the postseason:

"When you talk about this team, you're talking about guys [such as] Ayton, Paul, Booker, KD that live in the mid-range. You're not shooting a ton of free throws and you're not necessarily night-to-night gonna take and make a ton of threes. Do you run into a math problem against certain teams? That's a concern, legitimate concern for me," said Redick.

The Suns have to figure out a way to become a better team on the perimeter.