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The Phoenix Suns take on the Charlotte Bobcats, trying to remove the foul taste left in their mouths after getting completely dominated by the Miami Heat on Monday. At the surface, you have two teams that are not dong well offensively. Charlotte is shooting only 40 percent as a team while the Suns are at under 42 percent.
Neither team is looking great overall on defense either.
The Suns, who looked great defensively for two and a half games have completely erased that memory in their last six quarters, starting with the 40 points they allowed in the third quarter to the Orlando Magic.
Charlotte gives up over 107 points per contest and their opponents are shooting over 50 percent.
Both, though, have young talent.
Charlotte is getting good production at point guard between Kemba Walker and Ramon Sessions. Walker is averaging 20 points in two games, while Sessions is averaging 16.5.
What does Phoenix need to do to get the win?
First of all, they need to either get their defense back in order or start shooting the ball. Only three players (Marcin Gortat, Luis Scola and P.J. Tucker) are shooting better than 42 percent on the year. Jared Dudley is shootinig 35 percent. As a team they are shooting only 25 percent of their threes.
I don't suppose this will last the entire season, so a lot of the Suns' ills will be easily taken care of once the shots start to fall.
As for tonight, if they just get back to their defensive play from their first two games and the first half of the game against Orlando, they will be fine.
Alvin Gentry wants the team to have an identity of being a great defensive team that plays extremely hard. Locking down a bad offensive team is the way to start.