GOOGLE NEWS : SPORTS

2023 NBA playoffs: Scores, results, series schedules, dates, times, postseason live stream, TV info

4. Phoenix Suns

The lineup: Chris Paul, Devin Booker, Josh Okogie, Kevin Durant, DeAndre Ayton
Net rating: +15.5
Total possessions this season: 258
Suns skeptics asked a simple and fair question after the Kevin Durant trade: who is Phoenix's fifth-best player? There were, and remain, a number of viable answers. Torrey Craig? Landry Shamet? Buyout addition Terrence Ross? Monty Williams has largely eschewed all of them in favor of Josh Okogie. The Suns aren't even really experimenting with anybody else. Phoenix's starters have played 258 possessions together since the deadline. No other lineup featuring Durant tops 44.
Okogie checks a number of boxes for Phoenix. He's a metrics darling on defense, not quite Mikal Bridges' equal, but at the very least capable of chasing almost any guard in the NBA without sacrificing the strength necessary for most forwards. He's also one of the NBA's best offensive rebounding guards, which is a necessity for a team that rarely gets to the rim and needs to make up for that lost efficiency in other ways.
But the basic question any presumptive fifth-Sun needs to answer is this: can they make open 3's? Their March contest with the Mavericks offered a preview of the sort of defenses the Suns will see in the playoffs: aggressive help on Durant and Booker, wide-open looks for everyone else. Okogie shot 1-for-9 on 3's in that game. He's made a career-best 33.5% this season, but he remains below 30% in across his five NBA seasons.


The Suns aren't just going to see aggressive help in the postseason. They're going to get every junk defense Western Conference coaches can think up. They'll see box-and-one looks. They'll see some triangle-and-two when Durant and Booker are on the floor together. Teams are going to switch relentlessly knowing that Ayton isn't especially interested in punishing them for it. Whoever fills that fifth slot for Phoenix is going to make or break their championship hopes with his 3-point shooting.
Which makes it all the more surprising that Williams has seemingly written Okogie's name into that slot in pen. Granted, we're dealing with a tiny sample here due to Durant's ankle injury, but the lack of reps that players like Ross and Craig have gotten in that slot are a bit concerning. The Suns are going to have to feel those groups out in the playoffs themselves. Hopefully they won't need to. All of this becomes a whole lot simpler if Okogie just makes his shots.

ALL TEAMS


https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/2023-nba-playoffs-scores-results-series-schedules-dates-times-postseason-live-stream-tv-info/