How Tyus Jones has dampened Suns’ offense: ‘He’s exactly what we need’

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — A rare event occurred early in the first quarter of the Halloween meeting between the Phoenix Suns and the LA Clippers at the Intuit Dome. When Suns shooting guard Devin Booker entered the paint, he drew all five Clippers defenders and kicked out to power forward Kevin Durant, who swung the ball to new point guard Tyus Jones.

Clippers wings Norman Powell and Terance Mann converged on Jones, who tried to split Clippers defenders and drive back into the paint. But Jones was stripped of the ball by Mann – the first time all season that Jones had his dribble stolen from him.

The Suns trailed by 21 points with 10:51 left to play in the third quarter Thursday night. But the value of Jones helped the Suns get back into the game simply by helping Booker and Durant get to advantageous spots on the floor. Booker’s first shot of the second half was a mid-range attempt off a screen: well, with an assist from Jones. On the next down, Jones found Booker on the left wing and Booker hit a one-dribble pull-up mid-range shot over Powell heading toward the baseline. On third down, Booker screened for Jones to force Derrick Jones Jr. to switch with Powell, then Booker took Jones’ pass and dribbled into a Jusuf Nurkic ball screen for a 3-pointer.

The Suns ended up making their first 15 shots in a row to start the second half, an offensive avalanche that turned a possible Clippers rout into a coin-flip game. Maybe it would have been a game for last year’s Suns, a team that lost four games after leading by more than 10 points in the fourth quarter. But for the fourth time this season, the Suns outscored their opponent in the fourth quarter Thursday night, outlasting the Clippers 125-119 and improving their record to 4-1.

After Jones’ early turnover, he had a season-high 11 assists without adding another turnover to his record. That’s one of the things that’s very different about Phoenix’s offense this season.

“I think he stabilizes them and I think their offense is better with Tyus,” said Powell, who was in the same 2015 draft class as Jones. “It was a good pickup for them offensively. You have guys that can score: D. Book and KD. Some of the best scorers in the game, one of the best scorers ever. I mean, their offense is the same, but I think Tyus really helps them stay down, especially during their game.”

Jones was not a priority free agent among NBA teams. Although he broke his own NBA record for assist-to-turnover ratio (7.3 assists, 1.0 turnovers) last season as a starter for the Washington Wizards, the 6-foot-1, 196-pound Jones was available for nearly all of July before signing a minimum deal with a Suns team that had a tough time playing competent late-game basketball.

Last season, Booker assumed the point guard role. According to Second Spectrum, Booker averaged 73.4 touches per game. game, even though he shared a roster with Durant and Bradley Beal. The only other season in which Booker had more touches per game was in 2018-19, when Booker was entrusted with primary playmaking duties a year after Eric Bledsoe said he didn’t want to be in Phoenix. The results weren’t all bad last season, as the Suns were still the 10th best offense in the NBA.

But Phoenix was last in fourth quarter point differential and was outscored by an average of 2.4 points per possession. games in the money quarter. For perspective, the Miami Heat were 29th in fourth quarter point differential, but were outscored by just 1.2 points per game. game in the fourth quarter. Only the Memphis Grizzlies and Portland Trail Blazers, two teams that lost more than twice as many games as they won, had a worse assist-to-turnover ratio than Phoenix last season (1.43). The Suns offense dropped to 105.1 points per 100 possessions last season in the fourth quarter, the worst mark in the league.

A big problem the Suns had last year under Frank Vogel was the guard playing traditional point guards. The Suns figured they could play through Booker, Beal and Durant while adding players like Eric Gordon to the roster as a de facto backup point guard.

But not this year. Through five games, Jones has 35 assists and four turnovers, an even more sparkling assist-to-turnover ratio than last season. In the fourth quarter, Jones shares a team-high with Booker with eight assists, but only one of Jones’ turnovers this season has come in the fourth quarter.

“What a relief,” Booker shared Athletics about Jones’s presence.

Booker’s touches per game entering Thursday night was at 57.5, the lowest since the Suns were the NBA’s top regular-season team in 2021-22. While Booker has had to take on a heavy workload before in his career, he is happy to focus on buckets more with the addition of Jones and fellow assist-to-turnover agent Monte Morris to Phoenix’s roster.

“It’s just natural what I’ve been most of my life, and that’s a playmaker and a scorer,” Booker said after scoring a season-high 40 points on 11-of-18 shooting from the field against the Clippers. “Those guys can cover the table and take the pressure off us and make every basket not difficult. You get a couple easy ones in transition, they find you in the corner. Instead of having to create every down, you have somebody, who can do it for you.”

It’s not just Booker’s life that has gotten easier. Last season, Durant shot 48.8 percent from the field in the fourth quarter. He also had more turnovers (62) than assists (56) in 71 fourth quarters last season. This season, Durant’s efficiency is much better late: 57.1 percent field goals, with a modest but improved 3:2 assist-to-turnover ratio. Durant pointed out that part of Jones’ value is his ability to also be a threat as a shooter and be willing to play the ball away.

“The more playmaking and decision makers you can have on a team, at that level, it’s always good,” Durant said. “The ball still runs through me, book, Brad. But you add Tyus in there too, he mixes in a little bit. He doesn’t just control the whole game and give us shots when he wants to. I think we all just play in the flow of each other. I can bring it up, Book might bring it up. So the more versatile forwards you have with four or five guys that just throw it off. The key is that we can all catch-and-shoot, catch-and-drive, also play the ball away.”

As critical as Jones’ presence is for Phoenix, the Suns still want to be good in lineups that don’t have a true point guard. Suns head coach Mike Budenholzer won a championship in Milwaukee in a season with Jrue Holiday as his point guard. Budenholzer believes the Suns need to play well with or without a true point guard on the floor.

“I think there’s a trend, just with big players and just in general, anybody who brings the ball up the court, plays faster, gets it up the floor and just plays with a lot of space and plays with a lot of movement , and play more casually,” Budenholzer said. “That environment can lend itself to playing without the traditional point guards, where you might not line up and play slower, play in the half court, and play like the NBA has played for a long time I think there’s been a trend toward faster, more random, more space. I think it can also allow you to play without the traditional setup point guard.”

It’s still early, but the Suns are off to a 4-1 start in part because they’ve been able to get back into games and get buckets. Before the Suns overcame a 21-point deficit, they overcame an 18-point deficit to beat the visiting Los Angeles Lakers at home. Just a week ago, the Suns overcame a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter to escape the Clippers in overtime. The organization Jones brings can be illustrated in a play for which he didn’t even get an assist — a Royce O’Neale corner 3 in the fourth quarter assisted by Booker in the final minute after the Clippers showed Jones multiple bodies on a screen set by Booker:

“Having his experience, having his leadership, having him organize us,” Budenholzer said. “I think he got us in the right spots when he started the third quarter. He got guys the ball. … He’s exactly what we need.”

(Photo: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)