Suns' Bench Needs Improvement to Return to Winning Ways

The Phoenix Suns will be searching for issues to fix when going through the tape of their 128-199 loss to the Sacramento Kings. 

The largest area may be the play of Phoenix's second unit, who failed to produce anything of significance aside from Terrence Ross' 18 points off the bench. The six other bench players who played didn't reach over five points, three rebounds or two assists. 

Monty Williams said his second unit needs to improve after the Suns had their four-game winning streak snapped. 

“Their bench had 65 points, so that is unacceptable. Our bench came into tonight and the gameplan was not there from the jump," said Williams following the loss. 

"We were fouling and (Trey) Lyles came in and hit threes, (Malik) Monk got going in the second half, like we just didn’t have a high level of respect for their bench and Terrence (Ross) scored tonight but outside of that, we didn’t counter it. But our defense from our bench has got to be a lot better and that’s on me to get the guys out there that know what we are doing.”

The Kings' bench outscored Phoenix 65-34, with four-of-five players scored at least 12 points. The lone Sacramento player off the bench to not reach that mark (Chimezie Metu) tallied nine points and three steals.

"You talk about the bench? I thought Mezzi (Metu) and Daveon were huge defensively and they were big, they hit some huge clutch baskets for us," said Kings coach Mike Brown following the game. 

"We wanted to give Malik a quick breather because he had run a long time so we threw Daveon in the game and he hit a big three for us. The growth that he’s shown has been amazing, but Mezzi too. He’s been big, he got his hands on a few balls, he got out in transition because of his length and his athleticism, he was huge for us tonight too."

The loss to the Kings isn't the end of the world by any stretch, yet as we reach the conclusion of the regular season, concerns from last year's bench production may rise again.

Phoenix is back in action on Tuesday when the Milwaukee Bucks visit town.