Suns Should Feel Just Fine As Thunder Continue Dominance vs Lakers

PHOENIX — There was so much made about the Phoenix Suns' quick postseason exit against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round, though as the Los Angeles Lakers are set to discover a similar fate, perhaps the Suns should receive some grace from the national landscape.

The Thunder are up 3-0 in their second-round series against the Lakers with another expected sweep approaching for the defending NBA champs. Los Angeles, much like the Suns, aren't quite at full health, though many of the storylines around the two sides against Oklahoma City couldn't feel more different.

Phoenix wildly overachieved this season in their run to the first round, though their sweep from OKC prompted many national conversations around what the team should be doing — particularly with Devin Booker's future.

That same noise, oddly enough, isn't tuned up with a Lakers team that's missing Luka Doncic but still should be far more competitive than Phoenix was.

Regardless, Suns owner Mat Ishbia says the team learned plenty from their first-round exit.

"I enjoyed that we got to play the Oklahoma City Thunder. Of course, I would have rather won the game before, because I don't like to lose ever, but we got to play against the best team and got to see where we stood. And obviously we were missing a couple players, and there's no excuses, it's playoffs. You got to play. And I loved our competitiveness," Ishbia said at his end of season press conference.

"I think what was great about watching our team and coach Ott is Game 1 was not great. Game 2 was better. Game 3 was better. And Game 4 I mean, Game 3/4, we played really good basketball. They're a really good basketball team, and they deserve to win 60+ games like they have, and they won a championship last year, and they're gonna be really tough to beat this year. So it was great to see the champs up close and personal and know that that's where we want to be.

"We're going to keep building towards that. And so I liked it as an experience. We played them nine times this year, five times regular season. No one else had to do that. We played them four times in playoffs. There's a lot of times we played against them. We beat them a couple times, and we're going to figure out how to continue to get better, but you see what the champs look like and say, 'Okay, how do we keep building?'

"And we had a great foundational first year, and now we know where we want to go. I tell you guys, we're going to win championships here in Phoenix, and we're going to build towards it. And it's great to see what the best team looks like and say, 'Okay, now we know where we got to get better, and how do we close that gap next year and continue to build?'"

The Suns should feel just a bit better about themselves after seeing Oklahoma City continue to dominate a team with considerably higher expectations in Los Angeles.

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