PHOENIX– In their first win of the season, the Phoenix Suns were ultimately saved by Devin Booker’s 43-point masterclass. However, there was a much bigger problem to be examined.

Actually, there are three that the starting lineup has, according to Miles Bridges. He explained in the team’s locker room postgame that three things immediately stood out.

“Defensive urgency, rebounding, and moving the ball on offense in our half-court set,” Bridges said.

The 27th in offensive rebounding percentage (25.3%) and last in opposing offensive rebounding percentage (43.9%) rating tell that story.

Granted, they’re missing Oso Ighodaro and Mark Williams, but it’s a flaw that, only two games in, teams are already exposing that weakness. They’re crashing the glass and making sure that everyone is going for the ball the moment a missed shot comes into play.

A perfect example of this has to be in the first quarter during Saturday’s game, where there was a blatant rebounding discrepancy, favoring the Golden State Warriors 16-10. It doesn’t seem like much, but eventually, the second-chance points added up.

At the end of the game, those became 26-9 in favor of Golden State, and it’s something Booker acknowledged.

“Once you have a reputation where teams can get offensive rebounds, everyone’s gonna start crashing on us,” he said postgame.

Where can the Suns go for improvement?

What about those things Bridges explained were truly woeful? Does it have to do with statistics, matchups, teams they’ve played? Well, perhaps it is.

Or it could be looking internally, and evaluating how much of an antithesis the Suns’ bench mob is to the starting unit.

The four main players in that second unit (Collin Gillespie, Jordan Goodwin, Ryan Dunn, and Luke Kennard) all had a +10 rating or higher. Again, that’s a nerdy metric, but the eye test also justifies their impact.

Diving for loose balls, playing with defensive urgency, and moving the ball like it’s on a string was extremely evident. And then Booker came in and only amplified that.

The little things are usually there with whoever comes in the game. But it was the sheer chemistry that the bench played with that served as a wake-up call.

“I'd say right now they [the bench] have more of a chemistry than our first group, and I think typically that's how teams are,” Booker explained. “You play against those guys every day in practice, and they know each other like white on rice.

“Us as the first unit, I think, need to learn from them in a way, and the type that they play: everybody sacrifices in those groups, and you see the result that you get out of it.”

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Devin Booker’s voice is heard throughout the entire team

His comments were a total wake-up call to the other four players in the starting lineup. Unfortunately, Oso Ighodaro was a part of that, and had great chemistry with everyone not named Miles Bridges.

But injuries happen, and chemistry doesn’t grow on trees, or overnight. But there are 80 more games to figure out what exactly is going on.

Luckily, Bridges’s comments might mean that the problems are more so of getting reps under their belt. And once they do that, the defensive urgency, rebounding, and moving the ball on offense in the half-court set could vastly improve the ongoing question marks that the first group has.