VIDEO: Suns’ noisome defensive effort vs. Celtics

Your Phoenix Suns took a good crack at knocking off the top team in the Eastern Conference on Saturday. The Boston Celtics hung on for a 116-111 victory at TD Garden, despite Devin Booker doing what Devin Booker does against the C’s. He dropped 38 points against his favorite team. It wasn’t enough.

The Suns defensive effort has reached a new low.

In a season in which it seems Phoenix continues to rewrite the manual on giving up buckets, we learned on Saturday that we’ve not even begun to appreciate how bad this team can be defensively.

Feast your eyes on this beauty:

I’ll be honest with you I didn’t watch the game, because I was in the process of moving on Saturday. Like most recent seasons though, my interest in the Suns has already started to fade, if only slightly, and will continue to do so until about the All-Star Weekend. From there until the rest of the season, I’ll watch just enough to give you these gems several times a week. I’m a bad fan.

Maybe the effort was fantastic the rest of the game, and this was just one bad sequence. Maybe. The way the season has gone thus far though, I don’t think that’s the case. This is terrible, but I’m the real loser, because I continue to pay for League Pass year after year.

There are so many very, very good basketball writers, particularly those that cover the Suns, that do a masterful job of finding ways to keep the fan invested. Booker’s development, Monroe’s trade value, Marvin Bagley III, there are a number of things to talk about. Not winning, though. The concept of winning seems to have been indefinitely removed from all discussion.

But I didn’t think we had to give up on trying. I’m not the guy with unrealistic expectations of my favorite NBA team, but what a waste of time, right? I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a squad to be so perfectly in sync with their lack of interest in any sort of a defensive effort.

I don’t mean to vent to you guys, it’s just getting hard to watch, you know? There’s a lot of different ways to spend my free time. I’d like to spend it watching my favorite basketball team. A team that’s good, or fun, or interesting, or tries. We’re really none of those things. It’s just getting harder to muster the interest. I’m going to spend my 30s without the Suns going to the playoffs once. It’s sobering.

Suns have the Sixers tonight at 4p. I will not be leaving work early to catch the first part of the game.