Looking at the numbers, the Phoenix Suns are undoubtedly the NBA’s worst fourth-quarter team this season. In fact, they’re one of the worst fourth-quarter teams in NBA history.
It’s not a label anyone expected for a team with a Big 3 of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal — three clutch performers known for hitting big-time shots.
This has been a glaring issue since the first month of the season, but now, 77 games in, the Suns’ lowly rank in pretty much every fourth-quarter stat still comes as a shock:
Not to bombard poor Suns fans with a barrage of depressing statistics, but we need to be thorough in order to properly convey how bad the numbers say they are.
Phoenix’s fourth-quarter point differential is nearly three times worse than the next-closest team, the Miami Heat, (-1.3). The Suns’ fourth-quarter Net Rating is twice as bad as the next-closest team (Miami again at -6.0), and there are only four teams in NBA history with a worse fourth-quarter Net Rating since the league started tracking this data back in 1996:
2022-23 San Antonio Spurs (-15.3)
2021-22 Portland Trail Blazers (-15.5)
1998-99 Chicago Bulls (-14.4)
1998-99 Vancouver Grizzlies (-14.2)
So basically, the only teams with a worse fourth-quarter Net Rating over the last 28 years are a Spurs team that had the NBA’s second-worst record while tanking for Victor Wembanyama; a tanking Blazers squad that only got 29 games out of Damian Lillard; a Bulls team that plummeted from NBA champs to dead-last in the East as soon as Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen left; and an expansion team in its fourth year of existence that had the NBA’s worst record.
