GDHQNBA15_2pg-Phoenix Suns

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WESTERN CONFERENCE PACIFIC DIVISION Phoenix Jeff Hornacek shocked the entire basketball world by coaching the 2013-14 Phoenix Suns to a 48-win season when most prognosticators predicted half that many victories for the Suns. Yet by featuring a floor-spacing, guard-penetrating-for-twos, bigshitting for-threes offensive attack, Horny turned the Suns into an efficient point-making machine. And with long-armed wings and long-length bigs, he got his band of merry men to play tough-enough defense, with just enough rebounding to become the success story of 2014. Can he repeat his 2014 feat in 2015? Can he top it? Time will tell. We do know, however, that Hornacek still believes in his philosophies. He brought in two more attack guard dogs in Isaiah Thomas and Zoran Dragic to join an already elite tandem of Goran Dragic and Eric Bledsoe. Call it doubling down on a team that doubled its expectations last year. DEFENSE Yes, they can play defense. Not as pretty as they play O, but it can look just as frenetic, with defensive superstar Bledsoe disrupting guards with his speed, strength and athleticism better than any NBA player at the 1 or 2 spot. The only reason Bledsoe has not made an All-Defense team in any of his four NBA seasons is because the strong safety-masqueradingas guard has never played 2,000-plus NBA minutes. Bledsoe, who missed 39 games last season mostly due to knee surgery, will surely be instrumental in taking Phoenix from 13th-best defense (103.8 points allowed per 100 possessions) to top 10 status, if he can stay on the court long enough. Mini-LeBron is not surrounded by a lot of defensive stoppers around him—Miles Plumlee and vet Anthony Tolliver are decent defending bigs—but Hornacek got this team to play together on basic basketball tenets, which was enough for the team to make substantial improvement in a year. For instance, Hornacek’s shot-contesting Suns limited foes to 34.1 percent shooting on 3s, which ranked second in the NBA in 2013-14. Conversely, the Alvin Gentry- and Lindsey Hunter-coached Suns allowed 38.8 percent on 3s, which ranked worst in the league the year before. Consequently, those 2012-13 Suns ranked 24th in defensive efficiency (105.7). It’s part coaching, part mindset and part desire. McDonough did not go out and add any paint protectors to the mix, but who’s to say they cannot become a top 10 D after jumping from 24th to 13th last season. More likely, Phoenix will rely on its explosive guards to simply outscore and out-assist its competition. They believe: If any defenses out there can keep up with Dragic & Dragic, Bledsoe & Thomas, good luck to them. OFFENSE Are you on your heels? If not, expect a blow-by any minute from the direction of the Suns in Phoenix, with an assortment of attack guards the NBA has never seen before. It was bad enough last season, when new GM Ryan McDonough acquired super-athlete Bledsoe, nicknamed mini-LeBron by King James himself, to team up with returning point guard Goran Dragic after a stellar year in Phoenix in 2012-13. Those two, Dragic and Bledsoe, literally set the NBA on fire in 2013- 14, ranking amongst the league leaders not only in points per game on drives (any attack from the 20-foot range to the 10-foot range, excluding fast breaks)—Bledsoe 5.7 points, 9th; Dragic 5.3 points, 16th— but also in team points per game off drives—Dragic 11.1 points, 5th; Bledsoe 8.9 poins, 14th). Goran Dragic Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images


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