“We just want him to get that experience,” Bjorkgren said. “We’ve played him at the 3, today we played him a lot more at the 4. We want to give him experience guarding different guys.”
Suns general manager Ryan McDonough has said he thinks Bender can eventually become an elite defender who can switch out on the perimeter with ease. Bender’s nowhere close to that yet, but twice on Thursday a smaller Heat guard tried to beat Bender one-on-one to the basket, and twice they failed.
Bender played minimally last year with Maccabi Tel Aviv, so he can use all the professional minutes he can get right now before playing the actual, pressure-packed games come October.
His 3-point stroke is as smooth as they come, but he’s still a ways from knocking down those shots consistently. He made two of nine long-range shots on Thursday, with one coming out of the corner on a nice under-the-basket dish from Tyler Ulis.
“We want to turn him loose and shoot the open ones when they’re there,” Bjorkgren said. “And I’m telling you, he hit a couple of them tonight. It’s just a matter of time when they start falling 40 percent of the time, so he’s a very good shooter.”
