The Phoenix Suns (13-12) are playing in the final game of their week-long homestand tonight against the Washington Wizards (4-20).
Both teams come into this game as disappointments for different reasons- the Suns are one of the biggest underachievers at the quarter mark of the season while the Wizards look even more atrocious than was anticipated in the preseason.
Phoenix will also be without Bradley Beal for the game, as he is missing his first opportunity to play against the franchise he spent a decade-plus with.
Three storylines/things to watch for tonight:
Wizards’ Outlook Coming In
The Wizards are truly having an abysmal season in every fashion.
Washington comes into this game sitting at 4-20 with one of those four wins coming against the Indiana Pacers on Friday night, a team that has a similarly putrid defense.
The other three wins came against fellow lowly teams in the Memphis Grizzlies, Detroit Pistons, and Charlotte Hornets.
While the Wizards’ offense isn’t bad per se- they rank ninth in points per game and the defense is on pace to finish as one of the worst in league history.
Washington cedes nearly 127 points per night, allows opponents to shoot over 50% from the floor and gives up 13 offensive rebounds a game as well.
The Wizards are lead by Kyle Kuzma – who is having a career-best season – though there’s little to be excited about outside of Kuzma for Wizards fans.
Corey Kispert, Deni Avdija, Daniel Gafford, and Bilal Coulibaly – who will be discussed later on – are all decent enough young players, but none of them currently move the needle in terms of contributing to winning basketball.
Jordan Poole has struggled on both ends, frequently being a “pigeon” that opposing offenses relentlessly attack, and playing an inefficient volume scorer role on offense.
There is some good talent on the Wizards, but the truth is this might be the least talented team when looking at it in a vacuum.
Suns: Struggling Defense a Concern?
The Suns still rank 16th in opponents points per game, which is around league average.
That isn’t the concern.
The concern is the defense has seemingly taken a step back compared to earlier in the season.
Jusuf Nurkic can be exploited against more athletic bigs, the Suns’ rotations are an absolute mess, and it just seems as if there’s no structure or communication as of late.
This culminated in giving up 139 points to the New York Knicks on Friday night- a game that should’ve seen a better effort for the team in the presence of new ring of honor member Shawn Marion.
Jalen Brunson collected a career-high 50 points and drained nine three-pointers. Brunson is undoubtedly a great player, but many of his looks from deep were lightly contested or wide open.
The communication was off, the effort (or lack thereof) was inexcusable, and coach Frank Vogel has a lot of work to do to get Phoenix back on track.
Player to Watch: Bilal Coulibaly
Coulibaly was seen as a polarizing prospect in the 2023 draft process.
While some saw Coulibaly as a high-upside player that simply needed time to grow, others saw far too many flaws in his game to feel comfortable about using a high pick on him – not too much different from Josh Giddey in 2021.
The Indiana Pacers took Coulibaly with the seventh overall pick and sent him to the Washington Wizards in a player swap for Houston’s Jarace Walker.
Coulibaly has been a pleasant surprise for the Wizards up to this point. Though the rookie has only received one start this season, he has remained productive nonetheless.
The French product has had double figure scoring outputs in all six games in December, averaging 13.8 points on 43.5% shooting from deep.
Coulibaly has also proven to be one of the more disruptive defenders on a Wizards defense that lacks just that in many cases.
While the Wizards don’t have a great shot to take this game, Coulibaly is a player to watch in terms of having a stout performance.
Wizards-Suns is set to tip off shortly after 6 PM Arizona time.