Yahoo Sports NBA contributing writer Tom Haberstroh and senior NBA writer Dan Devine break down the Phoenix Suns performance so far this season and debate whether or not the Suns could take down the Oklahoma City Thunder. Hear the full conversation on “The Big Number” and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.

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Do you have another, another contender here that can take OKC down AEG, how about the Phoenix Suns seven and one tied for first in the West?

We've maybe, uh, you know, this is maybe a fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice.

We won't get fooled again, whatever, uh, after last season, but they're only 16th on offense right now, but they're seventh on defense.

They're looking a lot more like a Mike Budenholzer team.

Uh, they've punted on offensive rebounding.

They're resulting in a dramatic improvement in their defensive rebounding their sixth in defensive rebounding rate.

Yusuf Nurkic leads the NBA in defensive rebounding rate right now.

They top 10 in the share of shots they're allowing at the rim and behind the arc.

They're completely vaporizing corner threes right now.

They're plus seven points, seven points per 100 with Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal on the court, which is an improvement over last year.

Kevin Durant still an absolute killer in the fourth quarter, put up 11 of his 32 in the fourth to take down the heat on Wednesday night and improve them to seven and one.

Everything's moving in positive directions for them so far.

Devin Booker and Bradley Beal both playing hard playing official, even in slightly reduced offensive roles.

Ryan Dunn has been in absolute revelation as a rookie for them.

Kind of like a sudden.

Oh my goodness.

We have a three and D small ball five slash big wing that can guard everybody.

This looks like a Mike Budenholzer team and generally speaking, Mike Budenholzer teams win a whole hell of a lot.

So in a seven game series, what do you think about the Suns chances against the Oklahoma City Thunder?

I'm a little worried about the workload for Kevin Durant.

Is he going to be in that seven game series?

He's averaging 39 minutes a game, 36 year old Kevin Durant leading his team in those big moments, winning those clutch games.

But also they need every bit of that just to pull out these wins.

They clutch are great.

But I also think on the other side of that, it might be a little lucky some of those plays.

I mean, Jimmy Butler forgot what he was doing at the end of that game.

It looked like he short circuited like somebody unplugged the controller, right?

And that is something that's like, ok, how much can that be sustainable where their point differential points to more like a five and three team on top of the fact that Kevin Durant is trying to do everything and doing a marvelous job of it, but I don't like the fact that he is playing the most minutes per game that he's played since Obama's first term.

Like that's, that's where we're at right now.

Kevin Durant averaging 39 minutes a game is raising some red flags for me.

Long term.

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