The Phoenix Suns may have been lost in the shuffle when it comes to true title contention in the aftermath of the blockbuster trades the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics pulled off for Damian Lillard and Jrue Holiday, respectively, but make no mistake about it, the Suns are still as scary a matchup as it gets. With Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, and Bradley Beal leading the charge, no defense may be able to solve the conundrum that is the Suns offense given how deadly they are at scoring from all three levels.
And with the acquisitions of two former Portland Trail Blazers centers in Jusuf Nurkic and Drew Eubanks, Booker said that the Suns may have even more space to work with given the proficiency of those big men when it comes to setting screens, freeing them up for easier shots within the flow of the offense.
“Whenever we can get up one, the bigs are doing an incredible job of not letting guys shoot under the screens, they’re forcing to trail every action… It’s been fun,” Booker told reporters, via ClutchPoints Suns beat reporter Trevor Booth.
Screen-setting is such an underrated part of the game. The difference between a wide open shot and a slightly-contested one can boil down to the quality of the screen, and playing for the Blazers certainly helped develop that part of Jusuf Nurkic’s, and to a lesser extent, Drew Eubanks’ games. Freeing Damian Lillard was the Blazers’ offensive M.O. for years; imagine having three players who could pull up at any time, which the Suns do (although they do not have Lillard’s range of course).
