Suns once again unable to build off good win, blown out by Blazers

For the second time in a calendar week, the Phoenix Suns have proven incapable of making progress.

After encouraging wins on Monday and Friday, the Suns followed up by more or less looking like themselves. Saturday was a rough 127-108 loss at the hands of the Portland Trail Blazers.

Perhaps that incapability can change. But the calendar just turned to February. The hourglass doesn’t have much sand left in it.

For now, Phoenix looks like a team that will finish somewhere close to one side or the other of .500. Time will tell whether that’s good enough for a playoff spot or a play-in spot. It is embarrassingly not good enough for what this roster was assembled to do.

Portland is a bottom-five team in both offense and defense that came into Saturday on a 6-1 tear, the best form the Blazers have been in all season and the first time they’ve done that since the 2020-21 season. They’ve played much better defensively while using a well-rounded offense that had seven players averaging double figures.

The test the defense provided for the Suns, in particular, was good timing after Phoenix’s best offensive performance of the season on Friday. Given the Blazers’ athleticism, length and speed, this was a tough matchup stylistically for Phoenix if Portland indeed continued to excel defensively.

That might sound unacceptable for how much more talented the Suns are. And rightfully so. But for those nodding along to that, this is your latest reality check for where the Suns stand.

Phoenix began the game attempting to recapture the pace that worked so well in its two most recent victories. This time around, though it wasn’t able to spark ball movement and instead was more quick shots. Those weren’t going in much, all while Portland wasn’t doing too much offensively either, with the game squared at 37 early in the second quarter.

The Suns then fell behind by five a few minutes later before Anfernee Simons found his tempo, scoring or assisting on 11 points across Portland’s next five possessions. That was a 3:51 close to the first half Phoenix produced only two points across to trail by 15 at halftime.

A 2-6 record on the second game of a back-to-back loomed.

Devin Booker was once again looking like an old friend, armed with the pep in his step we’ve come to know, taking that into the third quarter at a level that could definitely bring the Suns back into a winning position. He put up all of Phoenix’s 15 points in the first 4:20 of the third quarter, only cutting the Portland lead to 10 thanks to no defensive energy and a startling lack of execution.

The Blazers came out of a timeout producing back-to-back open 3s in the corner to create the biggest lead of the game, 16. Portland’s Toumani Camara then picked off Booker at half-court for a breakaway dunk, definitively concluding things. Even with 17 minutes remaining in the game, that was the deal. There was no second quality punch coming.

In a tradition that one would imagine infuriates some Suns fans, Phoenix showed great energy in attempting to claw back in the game, not giving up. That is better than the alternative of course, but at the same time, the desperation only really emerges when the game is practically over. Portland had 98 points through three quarters.

Booker has been busting his ass to successfully shake off whatever funk he was in for the first two months of the season. It is proving not to be enough to snap the Suns out of this. He finished with 37 points and is 23 shy of passing Walter Davis as the Suns’ all-time leading scorer, a feat he will likely accomplish on Monday in a rematch against Portland.

Portland’s primary ball-handlers, Scoot Henderson and Simons, looked cozy all evening. This has been one of the underlying weaknesses of Phoenix this season, letting initiators get comfortable and confident due to a lack of physicality and resistance in ball screen coverage.

A good alternative to rattle that rhythm is having the bigs meet them at the level of the screen or even trap, but Nick Richards and Mason Plumlee do not do that. Jusuf Nurkic can in stretches but that situation self-imploded. Oso Ighodaro can but then that leaves the Suns even more susceptible on the glass. Portland’s ability to create high-quality looks in the third quarter to combat Booker’s heaters was a decisive strategic choice to force Richards to be in the right spot in his coverages. He struggled a lot.

The on-ball defenders have to be much better too. Bradley Beal and Booker are the pair that have the size and agility to do that to guards. It’s a mix of neither bringing that level of intensity or the defensive matchup in general. Grayson Allen, Tyus Jones and Royce O’Neale do not have those traits.

Ryan Dunn does. He, however, is the one really losing minutes with everyone healthy. Some of it makes sense, given Dunn’s lack of shooting throws off the Suns’ spacing. And he is still just a rookie. The vets have all the intricacies down he is learning.

But he gives the Suns a quicker, stronger wing as an on-ball defender. Portland started three of those. This was also a game when the Suns faded into blah energy for spurts, which is where Dunn and Richards can really help. Despite all that, Dunn hardly played until the fourth quarter.

To further emphasize that, an issue more on the low-key side has been forcing turnovers, and that was evident on Saturday. The Blazers are 29th in turnover percentage and had three of their nine turnovers through the three quarters the game was tight, only the third time this season they held the number to single digits.

Fastbreak points were 29-7 Portland, aided by a 24-10 advantage in points off turnovers.

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