Phoenix Suns | Pace and Space

Magic’s Bridesmaids: The 1984 Phoenix Suns

February 8, 2023 - by Fox Doucette

The Phoenix Suns are a prime example of how weird the NBA was when you got away from the four teams that mattered in the 1980s. Those were of course the Lakers and Celtics throughout the decade. Plus you had the 76ers early and the Pistons late. The 1981 Houston Rockets made the Finals with a losing 40-42 record before getting dusted by Larry Bird and company. The 1987 Seattle SuperSonics (we’ll get to them in this series—eventually, like I’ve said many times, my day job has eaten my life) got to the Western Conference Finals despite going 39-43 in …

Analysis

The Phoenix Suns Worst Season: 2019

October 12, 2022 - by Fox Doucette

The Phoenix Suns are the latest demonstration of one of the core principles of the NBA. Specifically, “if your franchise is hot garbage and all hope seems lost, acquire Chris Paul.” The New Orleans Hornets/Pelicans had their worst season in 2005. They drafted Paul with the fourth pick in the ’05 draft and posted the franchise’s only 50-win season in 2008. The Los Angeles Clippers were a garbage fire for decades. They acquired Paul in 2012, immediately went 40-26, and made the playoffs. They’d done so in just one of the previous 14 seasons. The Suns bottomed out in 2019. …

Analysis

The Phoenix Suns: Runaway 2022 Favorites

March 19, 2022March 19, 2022 - by Fox Doucette

Since taking a 23-point loss at the hands of the Miami Heat to drop to 30-9 on January 8, the Phoenix Suns are 27-5, carrying a 57-14 record into the last 11 games of the season. Indeed, the Suns are so far ahead of the rest of the NBA field that their magic number is just three to clinch home court throughout the Finals. Memphis, at 48-23, and Golden State, at 47-23, are the only ones who can catch them in the West, and Miami, at 47-24, is the only team mathematically alive in the East to get a Game …

Analysis

What We Learned from Warriors-Suns This Week

December 4, 2021 - by Fox Doucette

On Tuesday night, the Phoenix Suns extended their winning streak to 17 games, beating the Golden State Warriors 104-98 and in the process ending the Warriors’ seven-game stretch of success. After Phoenix disposed of Detroit to run that winning streak to 18, they headed up to San Francisco…and lost 118-96 to at last drop their fourth game of the season and end up at 19-4. In so doing, the Suns ended up in second place in the Western Conference, behind that 19-3 Golden State squad that now leads them by half a game in the standings once more. That’s right. …

Analysis

The Phoenix Suns’ Best Season: 1993

October 13, 2021 - by Fox Doucette

The Phoenix Suns and playoff disappointment go together like guns and ammo. You can’t have one without the other. The best regular season of the John MacLeod coaching era in the 1970s and early ’80s came in 1981, where they went 57-25…and lost to the Kansas City Kings, who had gone 40-42 that year. The Mike D’Antoni-coached, Steve Nash-directed Suns of the mid-aughts won 62 games in 2005 and 61 in 2007 and lost in the West finals in ’05 and the second round in ’07. And the 2021 Suns went 51-21 (a 58-24 82-game pace) made the playoffs for …

Analysis

NBA Playoffs: How Often Do Home Teams Win All 7 Games?

July 18, 2021July 19, 2021 - by Fox Doucette

Last week, we took a look at how often teams win the series when they draw first blood on the road. Favorites, as in “the team that gets Game 1 and, if necessary, Game 7 at home”, almost always win—if it hadn’t been for Golden State in 2016, that record would be flawless going back to at least 1991. Underdogs only win 41.2 percent of the time (again, since 1991), but since they only get three home games, they’re up against the wall from the moment Game 1 tips off. Last night (July 17), the Milwaukee Bucks won Game 5 …

Editorial

The Weird, Wacky Past of the 1970s Bucks and Suns

July 6, 2021July 6, 2021 - by Fox Doucette

As the Phoenix Suns jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the 2021 NBA Finals, handily beating the Milwaukee Bucks 118-105 on Tuesday, I got to thinking if they’d ever met in the playoffs before. “But Fox,” you may object, “the Bucks haven’t been to the Finals since 1974, and the other two times they played for the title, it was against the Celtics and the Bullets. What do the Suns have to do with that?” Well, you’ll notice for one thing that those two prior Finals appearances featured the Bucks as champions of the Western Conference. You’ll also notice …

Editorial

The Changing Face of Chris Paul’s Legacy

July 2, 2021 - by Fox Doucette

Chris Paul is officially out of the discussion of “greatest player never to make the NBA Finals.” On the one hand, that’s a nice little backhanded compliment to Steve Nash, who resumes his place as the holder of that honor, depending on how you feel about Pete Maravich or Dominique Wilkins. CP3 was and is better than any of those guys, but now that he’s made the Finals, he’s graduated off the list for that dubious honor. The question now becomes whether Paul can get over the hump, beat the Bucks or Hawks (Milwaukee leads the East finals 3-2 as …

Editorial

2021 Playoffs: The Terrible Coach Redemption Tour

June 21, 2021June 26, 2021 - by Fox Doucette

Editor’s Note: I made the mistake of assuming Brooklyn would win Game 7 of the East semis and wrote this column accordingly. Of course, Milwaukee won that game, so Mike Budenholzer, not Steve Nash, is coaching against McMillan and the Hawks in the ECF. Pace and Space regrets the error. The NBA was, for decades, a coaches’ league. Great leaders like Gregg Popovich, Phil Jackson, and Pat Riley became synonymous with the teams they led to greatness and were linked to the careers of their star players in Tim Duncan, Michael Jordan (and later Kobe Bryant), and Magic Johnson. In …

Analysis

5 NBA Teams Are 4-1. They’re Completely Different.

January 1, 2021 - by Fox Doucette

As the NBA heads into the 2021 calendar year, the 76ers, Pacers, Magic, Clippers, and Suns are all 4-1, tied for first in their respective conferences. Indeed, the Magic were the last unbeaten holdout, winning their first four games before losing to Philadelphia on New Year’s Eve. But if five games have taught us anything, there’s more than one way to win four out of five in professional basketball. Let’s take a look at the five best teams in the league as of ten days into the season and see what they have in common…and what makes no sense about …