A 116-122 loss shattered all the Suns' illusions about this year's playoffs, and the Minnesotans walked away with the final win of the series in Phoenix, ending the Suns' turbulent 2023-24 season with a clean 4-0. Despite the best efforts of Durant and Booker in this game, the two combined to score 82 points to fill the data column, Beal's only 9 points and six fouls still pushed the Suns to a desperate precipice.
I vaguely remember that before the playoffs began, Suns fans were full of confidence that their team had won the lottery, because the two teams met three times in the regular season, and the Suns won by a large margin to achieve a sweep. didn't want to enter the playoffs, and the swept script was actually taken by the Timberwolves, they didn't give the Suns the Big Three the slightest affection, and used the simplest and rough form to give Durant, Booker, and Beal the title of the most water Big Three.
But in fact, on second thought, the Suns' first-round exit was not Bill's inaction at all, but the coaching staff led by Vogel buried the talent of the Big Three. According to the American media and many NBA sources after the game, Suns head coach Vogel has lost the trust of the locker room, and now the Suns led by the Big Three will only have "hostility" to Vogel and no respect. There was even news that during the regular season finale, Vogel had lashed out in the locker room and reprimanded the players, but the Suns players didn't buy it, and some players even said that he couldn't help but laugh when he saw Vogel's outburst.
In addition, Suns star Durant said after being swept by the Timberwolves that the team has been inconsistent throughout the season and that the coaching staff will make adjustments in the summer. This sentence seems to refer to the adjustment of the stability of the squad, but it is actually pressuring the management to take action against the coaching staff led by Vogel. According to American media reporter Shams Charania, Durant is uncomfortable with his role, the team is mostly executing Booker and Beal's blocking and pick-and-roll tactics, and Durant is placed in the bottom corner, without proper tactics to play to his advantage.
At the same time, the source also said that for the Suns, a "team that loses or loses", they need to seize every opportunity at the moment, but it is clear that the Suns do not have the potential to become a championship team today, and the coaching staff has buried the talent of the Big Three on the offensive end, and in the process, the Big Three gradually lost trust in head coach Vogel. In response, management will seriously consider the proposal to change the coaching staff in the offseason, which can also be said to fire coach Vogel, and general manager Jones will continue to oversee the team building work.
In fact, if it is out of the first round under normal circumstances, even if it is a tie-break with the Timberwolves, the outside world's doubts about Vogel will not be so fierce, the key is that the Suns obviously have three top scorers, but they still can't escape the fate of sweeping, and more importantly, the Suns have two players who average more than 26 points per game in this round of the series, and the two of them are still swept by an average of more than 26 points per game, becoming the first team in NBA history. Such an embarrassing record all indicates that the Suns may have surfaced this summer, Vogel is likely to be "unable to escape death", in order to give the players an explanation, someone from the coaching staff must stand up and take the blame, and say goodbye to the Suns and the Big Three, Vogel is indeed not suitable for the offensive team of the Suns, he is more suitable for the team that is good at defense, just like the Lakers led in 2020, when the Lakers were a team based on defense, and finally won the championship under the leadership of Vogel.