Another heartbreaking end of a season could soon be coming for the Phoenix Suns, as they will most likely find themselves not participating in the playoffs once again. The Suns were holding on the 8th spot in the Western Conference for a very large part of this and the previous season, but it seems their fate will be none other but to miss the playoffs for the second time in a row. Last year, the Dallas Mavericks were able to snatch the last seed under their noses and the Suns were left out of the postseason.
Before the start of the current season it was thought that Phoenix will be one of the teams that could perform better than in the last campaign and therefore grab a playoff spot, especially after the addition of the electrifying point-guard, Isaiah Thomas. However, Thomas was dealt to Boston and Goran Dragic was shipped to Miami, while Brandon Knight joined the Suns team at the trade deadline in February. Phoenix has been playing very poor since those deals were made and it seems that the playoffs are slowly slipping away from them once more. There is a chance that coach Jeff Hornacek could find a way and grab that 8th spot in the West, but it would require a lot of wins and a bit of luck.
“It’s tough, there’s no room for error,” head coach Jeff Hornacek stated. “When we’re going up against the West Coast teams that we have to try to climb over, they’re big wins…When you get down to those last 25 games, I always say it’s the first 20 that everybody is jacked up, the middle 30 or 35 are kind of the dog days where the really mentally tough teams make their push and win a ton of games, and then you get to the last 20, 25, and teams are jacked up again. So it makes it very difficult to play in those games. We’re trying to do the best we can of the situation.”
It will be more than though for the Suns to overcome the New Orleans Pelicans and the Oklahoma City Thunder teams, who are currently in front of them in the standings. Phoenix had better chances before the deadline, when Dragic and Thomas were still part of the team – Knight is a guy that has skills, but he isn’t anywhere near the combined talent of the previous two. The worst part is, that the magic that the Suns showed last year just isn’t there anymore – the squad isn’t playing with the same intensity like one a year ago. It’s just a shame that the core of Dragic, Bledsoe and Thomas didn’t stay together and try to find a way to work everything out – they could have built something special in Phoenix.
NBA News: Is the season lost for the Phoenix Suns?
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