On Sunday afternoon, Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns had their playoff positioning officially locked up with a road win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, meaning that they would be the sixth seed in the vaunted Western Conference landscape and, ironically enough, travel back to Minnesota once again this weekend to get ready for a best of seven series vs the Timberwolves. It was an up and down season for the Suns this year, as the team battled injuries and inconsistent play, although Durant amazingly enjoyed one of the best seasons of his illustrious career from an efficiency standpoint despite being 35 years old and on the wrong side of an Achilles injury.
In any case, the Timberwolves vs Suns series figures to be one of the most interesting to watch in the first round. The Suns had their way with the Timberwolves this season, sweeping the season series vs their friends from the north, but of course will have the disadvantage of opening up the series on the road for the first two games instead of at home.
One person who has some ideas for how Phoenix can get the best of Anthony Edwards and company is none other than Golden State Warriors power forward and former Durant teammate Draymond Green, who recently took to his own The Draymond Green Show podcast to outline his keys for a Suns' push into the second round.
“I think Phoenix will win the series,” said Green, per The Volume Sports on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter. “I think they've got too much firepower offensively. Here's what will have to happen for Phoenix to win the series. At some point throughout this series, Kevin Durant is going to have to guard Anthony Edwards… at some point, Kevin is going to have to take his length, his defensive tenacity when he wants to turn that up, and he's going to have to go guard Anthony Edwards.”
An interesting challenge
Indeed, Anthony Edwards profiles as by far the toughest cover on the perimeter for a Timberwolves team that had an upstart season in 2023-24 despite dealing with an injury to Karl-Anthony Towns, who returned to the lineup at the very end of the regular season.
The Suns are not exactly brimming with elite perimeter defenders, but Durant has turned himself into just that throughout the course of his Hall of Fame career, using his immense wingspan to stay in front of quicker players and block shots both on the perimeter and around the rim.
On the other end, as Green referenced, the Suns do in fact have a ton of firepower in the form of Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal, who have been a nightmare for opposing defenses when they've all been on the floor this season, which hasn't necessarily been a common occurrence but figures to be the situation when the series gets underway on Saturday.
In any case, these two teams are very stylistically different and should make for a very entertaining first round series.
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