Phoenix Suns

Suns' defensive rebounding is best it's been since 2001 season

Published Nov. 4, 2015 11:46 a.m. ET

foxsports

The Suns are off to a 2-2 start to the season, but by at least one metric, the team is the best it's been in years.

Traditionally, Phoenix hasn't excelled in the defensive rebounding category, and has ranked 19th or worse in the league in defensive rebounding percentage in each of the last 14 seasons.

But Bryan Gibberman of ArizonaSports.com points out that things have been very different in that area to this point in the season.

The personnel is there for this trend to continue over a longer period of time. Hopefully for the Suns, this remains an area of focus all season long.

It’s only been four games, but it looks like that’s set to change with this incarnation of the Suns. They’ve grabbed 83.8 percent of the available defensive rebounds, good for fourth in the NBA.

That number will assuredly go down as the sample size increases; the Hornets were the best defensive rebounding team last season and their defensive rebounding percentage was 79.3.

Some of the Suns’ early success has do with who they’ve played. The Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Clippers and Portland Trail Blazers all ranked in the bottom third of offensive rebounding percentage last season. That fact aside, the Suns do have the personnel to make this a strength.

“Obviously, with Tyson (Chandler) in there we got some guys who can fill it if he can’t necessarily get it,” said head coach Jeff Hornacek. “Markieff (Morris) has been getting in there, Tuck (P.J. Tucker), Jon (Leuer) is coming in there and getting us a lot of rebounds. Probably on top of that, defensively, teams are a little worried about when we run, so that helps us out.“
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