28 Games: Will the Suns make the Playoffs?

I once had a co-worker who made the statement that if you barely slip into the NBA Playoffs, you suck as a team. His logic was that 16 teams, or more than half the league, qualify for the postseason.

I wonder what he thought about the teams that don’t make the playoffs?

The Phoenix Suns find themselves in very strange territory. At 27-27, they are in 10th place in the Western Conference, 2.5 games behind the Utah Jazz behind the Utah Jazz for the 8th and final playoff spot. According to my friend, the Suns are in “suck” territory.

Let’s be realistic. The Suns, as currently constructed, don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning their first NBA title even if they do qualify for the postseason. But in a year of reshaped reality and ever-changing goals, the Suns have stated publicly and repeatedly that they want to make the playoffs. Only missing the postseason seven times in 35 seasons will influence that type of goal.

So will they make it?

Let’s look at both sides of the coin, shall we?

• They’re actually playing better as of late - After getting shellacked 132-98 at the hands of the Denver Nuggets on January 11th, the Suns were pretty close to rock bottom. They were a season-high six games under .500 and had lost 12 out of their last 16 games. Well, if you thought that was close to rock bottom, you were wrong. The very next night, the Suns trailed the woeful New Jersey Nets by 15 points with under ten minutes to go in the game. The Suns rallied, forcing overtime, and that’s when Steve Nash took over with 10 points in the extra frame to give the Suns an improbable 118-109 victory.
  Since then, Phoenix is 12-6 and has victories over the likes of the Knicks, Celtics and Hornets in that stretch. It’s almost like the team saw the abyss, but just refused to go into it.
• The opposition - Yes, the Suns will need to leapfrog two teams over the next 28 games to get in. But, you can also make a strong argument that four of the five teams directly above the Suns in the standings will face some challenges post-All-Star break. The Portland Trail Blazers, who are in 5th place and lead the Suns by 4 games, have been riddled by injuries and it’s not certain how much they’ll be able to rely on veterans Brandon Roy and Marcus Camby down the stretch. Roy has missed Portland’s last 30 games after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on both of his knees. Camby is out indefinitely as he recovers from arthroscopic surgery on his left knee. Head coach Nate McMillan has done a masterful job of squeezing the most out of this team, but how long can he continue to do it without two main cogs?
  New Orleans, I believe, is a sure-fire playoff team, and with rumors circulating that they’re close to acquiring forward Carl Landry from Sacramento, they’re pretty safe.
  Denver traded away their two best players in Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups, and will have to blend chemistry with five new players very quickly if they hope to stay in the race.
  Utah has undergone a coaching change and a trade of their best player in the last week and a half, and they weren’t exactly playing great basketball before any of these things occurred.
  And Memphis, much like Portland, is dealing with a key injury to their best player. Rudy Gay will miss the next month with a partially dislocated left shoulder.
  The door is open, now all the Suns have to do is walk through it.

• The schedule - It ain’t easy the rest of the way for the Suns. They play 16 of their remaining 28 on the road and exactly half of those games against teams that are currently in playoff position. There’s two monster road trips (a 6-gamer to Toronto, Indiana, New Jersey, Boston, Milwaukee and Oklahoma City and a 5-gamer in April to San Antonio, Chicago, Minnesota, New Orleans and Dallas) remaining on the schedule. And unfortunately for Phoenix, they don’t have any games remaining against Portland, Utah or Memphis–three teams they’re chasing.
• Inconsistency - The Suns have been maddening at times this season. They’ve beaten the Lakers, in a game in which they connected on 22 three-pointers. They’ve beaten Boston–holding the Celtics to just 71 points on 34% shooting. But for the great wins, they’ve had losses equally as bad. How about losing at home to Charlotte while giving up 114 points in the process? How about soiling the bed at home against Sacramento, and yielding 113 points to a team playing their 2nd game in less than 24 hours?
  With such little margin for error the rest of the way, the Suns will have to shake the inconsistent tag that has plagued them all year. That sounds easier said than done.

So, what do you think? Participate in our poll below…

Will the Suns make the NBA Playoffs this season?customer surveys

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