When Mat Ishbia .
That defense is leading to offense, too.
Suns’ offense better without KD?
Phoenix ranks sixth in points off turnovers, scoring 1.41 points per possession off a steal, compared to 1.17 when they push following a defensive rebound and 0.99 against a set half-court defense.
Ott wants the Suns hitting the gas and hunting early offense whenever possible; after finishing 25th in average time to shot last season, Phoenix sits fifth so far this season, according to Inpredictable, firing one up within 10.9 seconds of having the ball. The whole team is operating with a let-it-fly mentality, especially from 3-point land: Nearly 41% of Phoenix’s shots have come from beyond the arc, a top-10 rate, with multiple Suns hoisting long balls at career-high frequency.
Allen has the greenest light of his eight-year career to fire off the dribble, and he’s taking full advantage, launching nearly 10 triples per 36 minutes and drilling them at a 44.7% clip on his way to a career-high 18.5 points and 4.3 assists per game. O’Neale, long one of the league’s more dependable 3-and-D wings, is at 43.5% from distance on nearly nine attempts per-36.
Brooks hasn’t been nearly as accurate, shooting just 34.1% from deep, but he has looked very comfortable in a larger offensive role, finishing 28.2% of Phoenix’s offensive possessions with a shot attempt, foul drawn or turnover — a jump of more than 10% from his usage rates in Houston — and shooting at career-best rates inside the arc en route to 21.4 points per game.
“Yeah, this game is all about confidence,” Brooks said, according to Olson. “No matter what level it is, you gotta be confident in your game.”
Booker has never lacked confidence in his game. After an up-and-down 2024-25 season that saw him play through some groin and back issues amid the vibes vortex of the KD/Beal experiment circling the drain, he’s back to looking like the perennial All-NBA candidate we’d become accustomed to seeing, averaging a team-best 26.9 points and 7.1 assists per game, shooting 47.2% from the floor and 88% from the foul line:
With Booker firmly at the controls on the ball — an estimated 60% of his minutes have come while functioning as Phoenix’s point guard, according to Cleaning the Glass — the Suns have taken a jump on the offensive end, too. Phoenix enters Monday scoring 119.1 points per 100 possessions outside of garbage time, tied for seventh in the NBA.
The plan of attack looks different. Ott, who last season served as an assistant under Kenny Atkinson on Cleveland’s record-setting offense, prioritizes de-cluttering the interior: Phoenix is 26th in post-ups and 22nd in elbow touches per game, and has dropped its midrange frequency by about 4%. (Bye-bye, KD and Brad.) Making sure the floor is properly spaced — shooters stationed deep in each corner and in the slot, often with someone lurking in the dunker spot for a drop-off — has helped open up dribble penetration, with the Suns ranking 13th in drives per game (up from 20th last season) and seventh in assists off forays to the basket.
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With Booker, Allen and revelation backup point guard Gillespie consistently getting downhill and looking to spray the ball out to the perimeter, the Suns rank third in the NBA in points scored per possession on spot-up shots, according to Synergy. With multiple Suns shooting the cover off the ball off those kickouts, they have the third-highest team effective field goal percentage (which accounts for 3-pointers being worth more than 2-pointers) on catch-and-shoot looks, according to Second Spectrum. Combine that with an increased emphasis on pounding the offensive glass — fourth in the NBA in offensive rebounding rate and 10th in second-chance possessions per game — and strong finishing on the interior, and you’ve got the recipe for what is, kind of hilariously, on pace for a better offensive finish than any KD-era Suns team.
There have been hiccups: a loss in Utah where the Suns gave up an 8-1 run in the final two minutes of overtime; a one-point defeat to the Grizzlies in one of the rare highlights of Ja Morant’s season to date; that disastrous loss to the Hawks in which Phoenix blew a 22-point lead in the fourth quarter. And there are caveats: chiefly, that the Suns have played one of the NBA’s softest opening slates, with 10 home games against seven road contests, headlined by a recent five-game stretch that began with a home-and-home against the Clippers before taking on the Pelicans, Mavericks and Pacers.
Conversely, they have one of the league’s toughest remaining schedules, which starts getting rough right about … now. Between Monday and Christmas, the Suns will have to face the Rockets, Lakers and Warriors twice, in addition to meetings with the Thunder, Nuggets and Wolves; by Boxing Day, we should have a much better sense of just how serious these Suns really are.
Considering how deeply unserious many thought Phoenix was after Ishbia’s failed attempt to speed-run a titlist, though, these first few weeks represent a mammoth sea change in how we must consider the Suns. If, as my pal Paul Flannery used to say, the best time you can have in the NBA is right before you get good, perhaps the second best time is when, after being dreadfully unfun, you start to rediscover a spark of joy.
The picks are dealt, the money’s spent, and you have — reasonably, I think, from both a talent and “recognizing your organizational saints” perspective — tied yourself to Booker for as much and as long as possible. So: what do you do? Try to refresh the culture, try to establish an identity, try to rebuild the trust with your fan base, and try to make the experience of watching your team play fun again. That’s where the Suns are right now. And after two years of slogging and spiraling, that ain’t nothing.
