The Phoenix Suns are proud to be a much-improved defensive team this season, with owner Mat Ishbia’s vision for this franchise somehow becoming a reality. The team is tough every night and has players like Dillon Brooks and even Collin GIllespie who treat every possession like a Game 7.
Suns are quietly excelling on the offensive end of the field.
What most didn’t see coming, however, is the fact that the Suns under head coach Jordan Ott have also quickly put together an offensive game plan that is currently working wonders. Anytime you have Devin Booker you have a chance to be special, but that wasn’t the case when Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal were in town.
Lineups with Collin Gillespie on the floor without Devin Booker have played nearly 300 minutes this season.
The Suns had an offensive rating of 125.3 during that time, which would rank in the 95th percentile. That’s a huge win for Phoenix.
— Shane Young (@YoungNBA) November 19, 2025
So this feels like addition by subtraction, because some of the basketball they played and the numbers that followed paint a very encouraging picture for the future. Starting with the facts, the Suns are scoring 117.5 points per game, good for eighth in the league. If you look back at their last six games, they are fourth (123.3).
The team is 5-1 during that stretch, while also ranking fourth defensively after giving up 108 points on a nightly basis. That’s a huge margin of victory on any night, with the only loss coming against the Atlanta Hawks when they somehow let a 22-point lead slip away. That will happen from time to time, but the fact that they didn’t allow it to knock their confidence was brilliant to see.
Anyone who watches this squad knows they take a ton of three-pointers, and that too has been an integral part of their success. Coach Ott wants them to be active defensively, then increase the pace and take the open and correct shot at the other end. When Grayson Allen and Royce O’Neale are around Booker, you’re throwing 40.7 attempts every night, eighth-best in the NBA.
If that game plan sounds overly simple, that’s because it is. Instead of trying to find ways to star Durant and Beal – while involving Booker – as has been the case in the past, Coach Ott lets the team run and let the ball find the open man. They just happen to have the personnel that can take advantage of this style of play.
Making 38 percent of those efforts from deep puts them sixth in the league, another elite mark for a team that should have been anything but. So while coach Ott wants the Suns to defend at an elite level every night, they have created a simple and effective game plan to get the best out of the players in The Valley. In other words, they’ve cracked the code.
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