The Phoenix Suns lost Kevin Durant to a sprained ankle last week, going 1-1 in their two games with their victory coming against the Oklahoma City Thunder and their loss against the Sacramento Kings.
Durant is out for at least the next three weeks, and NBA power ranking curators dropped the Suns down their respective rankings ahead of a busy week in Phoenix:
The Athletic: No. 7
Zach Harper: "Obviously, we’re not going to see this lineup for some weeks. We only saw it in three games before Durant’s ankle failed him in warm-ups. Hopefully, he gets back before the playoffs begin and we can see him on the court in the last week or so of the season. Then we can see this group again. We can’t expect it to be this dominant, but the offense should be absurd.
"Four players on the court can score with relative ease in the situations they find themselves in. Okogie is a dog on defense and can really create some chaos. This will be a lineup, along with swapping in Torrey Craig for Okogie, the Suns expect to propel them toward a title run this postseason … if healthy."
NBA.com: No. 7
John Schuhmann: "The Suns without Kevin Durant are still pretty good. After Durant sprained his ankle during his pre-game workout on Wednesday, they clobbered the Thunder (who were without Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), getting 44 points (on 17-for-23 shooting) from Devin Booker and 24 off the bench from Terrence Ross. And with the win, the Suns had scored at least 130 points per 100 possessions more times in March (3) than they had prior (2).
"But the Suns without Durant are lacking some depth. And on Saturday, they lost a game in which they outscored the Kings by 14 points in the 18.7 minutes that their starting lineup was on the floor. They were a minus-23 in the other 29.3 minutes, allowing Sacramento to score 89 points on 64 possessions (139 per 100) when at least one of their starters was on the bench.
"The Suns are 7-4 since trading Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson, 3-0 with Durant and 4-4 without him. And there will be nine more without-him games before Durant is even reevaluated at the end of the month. Durant never seems to have any rust when he returns and the Suns will be near impossible to guard when they have all their stars in uniform, but they still have some work to do to secure a top-four seed in the West. They lead the fifth-place Clippers and sixth-place Warriors by three games in the loss column and they’ll play both of those teams one more time this season. The game against the Clippers is on the last day of the season, but they’ll have an opportunity to complete a season sweep of the champs in San Francisco on Monday."
CBS Sports: No. 9
Colin Ward-Henninger: "Kevin Durant tweaked his ankle during warmups before what would have been his home debut for Phoenix. Boo. The Suns still won that game, but lost to the Kings in a valiant effort on Saturday. Devin Booker scored 44 points in 28 minutes in the win over OKC, while Chris Paul averaged 17 points and 12.5 assists in the two games on 57 percent shooting."
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