'Dominant' Phoenix Suns favorite to win it all, open playoffs vs. New Orleans Pelicans (2024)

Picking the Suns to capture the franchise's first championship, NBA TV analysts Greg Anthony and Stan Van Gundy provide breakdown of Phoenix's strengths, weaknesses and who most stands the way of this deep and talented team winning a title this year.

Duane Rankin|Arizona Republic

NBA TV analyst Greg Anthony put Phoenix’s 64-win season in a historic perspective that really shows how dominant the Suns were through 82 games.

“They have a larger lead than the Warriors had when they won (an NBA record) 73 (games),” Anthony said during an TNT media call Friday.

The 2015-16 Warriors finished that regular season six games ahead of San Antonio, which went 67-15.

The 2021-22 Suns posted a franchise record of 64-18, eight games better than Memphis (56-26).

That alone is playing heavily in Anthony and fellow NBA TV analyst Stan Van Gundy believing the Suns are the favorite to win their first NBA championship this year.

“Their consistency is pretty amazing,” Anthony said. “You could argue they have five all-defense starters. They have five guys who could make the all-defensive team. Offensively, they really share it. They play egoless basketball.”

The top overall seed, Phoenix starts its postseason run at 6 p.m. Sundayat Footprint Center against eighth-seeded New Orleans in Game 1 of a best-of-7 Western Conference first-round series.

“This whole idea that there’s no dominant team is way off base,” Van Gundy said. “They were clearly an extremely dominant team. They’re clearly the best team. If I had to bet Phoenix against the field, I’m taking Phoenix.”

Game 2 is Tuesday in Phoenix, followed by Game 3 Friday in New Orleans (36-46).

“They’ve got an accountability in their locker room that’s as good as you’re going to get,” Anthony said about the Suns. “Those guys, they have fun pregame, but they’re serious about their business and they all buy in. Those are the scariest kinds of teams. When you watch them when things aren’t going well, their trust factor stays high. They don’t get out of character and that’s a huge advantage, especially in the postseason when things are tougher.”

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Van Gundy named Golden State as a team in the West that could beat the Suns —if the Warriors can return to the level they displayed when winning on Christmas Day in Phoenix.

“I find that hard to believe they could in this short amount of time,” Van Gundy said. “I see Phoenix in the finals. The finals are always a tough challenge, but if I’m betting, I’m taking Phoenix.”

Thinking along the same lines as Van Gundy, Anthony said the third-seeded Warriors “at their best” are a concern as they open the postseason Saturday against sixth-seeded Denver.

“They have a tremendously high basketball IQ with their most important guys,” Anthony said.

The Warriors and Suns split their regular-season series, 2-2. If Phoenix and Golden State do meet in the postseason, it’ll be in the conference finals.

“They still have a small team,” Anthony later said about the Warriors. “They really don’t have an answer for (Deandre) Ayton or (JaVale) McGee as a backup. Their ability to put pressure on the rim. Does Golden State shoot it well enough from 3 (in a series)?”

Anthony also mentioned Dallas and Memphis as contenders.

He acknowledged the health of All-Star Luka Doncic, who will miss Game 1 against Utah with a calf strain, but the Mavericks end the regular season seventh in defensive rating in Jason Kidd’s first season as head coach after being 21st in that category last season under Rick Carlisle.

“That would be an interesting matchup,” Anthony said. Phoenix swept the Mavs, 3-0, in the regular season.

As for the Grizzlies, Anthony said the 2015 NBA champion Warriors weren’t the favorite that year.

Golden State only received 3.8% of the votes to win the NBA Finals in a survey of the league’s 30 general managers. San Antonio (46.2%) received the most votes followed by Cleveland (15.4%), Chicago (11.5%), Los Angeles Clippers (11.5%), Oklahoma City (11.5%) and Golden State.

“They proved everybody wrong and built that confidence to create that dynasty,” Anthony said. Golden State won two more titles in 2017 and 2018.

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Anthony added that Golden State started building momentum toward that run of excellence when pushing the Spurs to six games in the 2013 conference semifinals.

When analyzing the Grizzlies, Anthony believes their play-in win at Golden State to earn the eighth seed in last year’s playoffs was a springboard to how they’ve performed this season.

The second-seeded Grizzlies opened this postseason with an 130-117 lossSaturday to the seventh-seed Timberwolves. Memphis is the only team to post a winning record over Phoenix, 2-1, in the regular season.

If the Suns and Grizzlies meet again this season, it’ll be in the conference finals.

“They can give a lot of teams problems, but again, they have some concerns,” Anthony said about the Grizzlies, who weren’t ranked in the top eight in the West in this year’s NBA GM preseason survey.

The Suns were picked to finish eighth by the NBA GMs heading into last season, but they went to the finals and took a 2-0 series lead on the Bucks before dropping four straight games to lose the finals.

Anthony feels likes Milwaukee handled the adversity of being down two games in capturing the franchise’s first title in 50 years very well. He acknowledges Dario Saric going down Game 1 with a torn right ACL hurt the Suns as they struggled matching Milwaukee’s size.

The Suns addressed that problem by adding McGee and Bismack Biyombo as Saric hasn’t played all season.

“They have some athleticism, they have some depth, they defend well,” Anthony said.

The Suns have the NBA’s top backcourt, too, in All-Stars Devin Booker and Chris Paul.

“They have two guys in the backcourt who are better than anybody in the clutch,” Anthony said. “They’re going to be challenge for anybody to beat four out of seven.”

Squandering that 2-0 lead to the Bucks as served as a huge lesson learned Anthony believes has led to how well the Suns have played this season.

“I think last year’s finals taught them a lot and I think that’s why you’ve seen the level of consistency they’ve played with all year,” Anthony said.

Anthony pointed out injuries being a concern as is the case for every NBA team. However, Phoenix had most of their guys miss games all season and still managed to have league’s top record.

The Suns went 11-4 without Paul, who sat 15 games with a fractured right thumb on his shooting hand.

“I don’t see you could not look at them as a favorite,” Anthony said.

Van Gundy believes the Suns do have two weaknesses going into the playoffs — free throwsand rebounding.

The Suns ended the regular season 27th in the NBA in free-throw attempts (19.9) and 23rd in free-throw attempts allowed (22.7).

They committed 19.9 fouls a game.

As for the boards, Phoenix finished 10th in rebounds per game at 45.3, but only averaged 9.8 offensive boards and allowed 10.5.

However, Van Gundy doesn’t see either concern as being very problematic.

“They do everything else well,” he said. “Even though Booker is their best offensive player, they’re not over reliant on one or two guys.”

Anthony believes weaknesses are relative to who a team is facing, meaning the opponent might present a matchup problem.

To him, Milwaukee can exploit Phoenix’s woes, but not be enough to derail the Suns.

“I just don’t know if anybody has got enough to basically say we can take advantage of that,” he said.

The Suns finished the regular season fifth in the NBA in offensive rating and third in defensive rating.

No other NBA team is ranked top five in both categories.

“Every guy on their team takes their defensive responsibilities seriously,’ Van Gundy said. “They’ve got great depth. So, a short-term injury won’t be enough to undo them.”

The Suns led the league in field goal percentage at 48.5%, finished fourth in assists at 27.4 and seventh in fewest turnovers a game at 12.9.

They ended the regular season fourth in points per 100 possessions and third in fewest points allowed per 100 possessions.

“I think it’s going to be hard for anybody to beat them,” Van Gundy said.

Have opinion about current state of theSuns? Reach Suns Insider Duane Rankin at dmrankin@gannett.com or contact him at 480-787-1240. Follow him on Twitter at @DuaneRankin.

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'Dominant' Phoenix Suns favorite to win it all, open playoffs vs. New Orleans Pelicans (2024)
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