Jalen Green finds more balance, Suns win shootout vs. Bucks
The balance Phoenix Suns guard Jalen Green must find could not have been illustrated more clearly than in a win over the Bucks.
Phoenix Suns' Jalen Green smiles during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Milwaukee Bucks, Tuesday, March 10, 2026, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Aaron Gash)
(AP Photo/Aaron Gash)
The balance Phoenix Suns guard Jalen Green has to find could not have been illustrated more clearly within the good and the bad than in Tuesday’s 129-114 win over the Milwaukee Bucks.
Green finished with 25 points on 10-of-20 shooting with four rebounds, five assists and three turnovers. In one massively important way, it was his best game of the season. And that comes down to the roller coaster of his decision-making that was a topsy-turvy ride.
Overall, it was a great step in the right direction for Green.
The key for him will be eliminating clusters like his second and fourth quarters, when the issues were evident. But the Suns (38-27) will absolutely live with that if he keeps playing like he did in the other portions of the game.
While some of the good was questionable pull-up jumpers considering his poor efficiency in that area, some of which fueled his 16 points in his first 10 minutes, Green had bunches of good passes on downhill drives, and those continuing to tick up would be a notable progress point.
The whole dilemma of his decision-making can come down to one (good) play he made on an assist to Devin Booker in the mid-third quarter.
When Green started isolating and getting into his handle, he nearly double-dribbled by bailing on a pull-up 3 he almost instinctually jacked up. Instead, with a quick reset pass, he then slashed toward the basket to kick it out to Booker for a 3.
This decision by Green basically sums up the whole article. Nearly lets it go before making a great basketball play. https://t.co/FW4znardXL pic.twitter.com/m117jyriD1
— Kellan Olson (@KellanOlson) March 11, 2026
That’s big time. It’s only one play but it displays a commitment to Green wanting to play the right way, and that he will be mindful of instances like that in the future.
Green kept that rolling to start the fourth quarter, with two patient drives not rushing into a jumper that resulted in two more 3s for his teammates that got the Suns’ lead up to double digits.
Green then took a more ill-advised 3 before a reckless drive into a defender and then a not-so-great middie before a turnover on a drive let Milwaukee get back within seven, but hey, progress!
The rest of the game was defined by Milwaukee (27-37) knocking down enough 3s and the difficulty within Phoenix’s rotations off the ball defensively, plus the problem of chasing guys off the line with proper on-ball defense.
The Bucks were 16 for 38 from 3, and 16 of Kyle Kuzma’s 33 points in the third quarter started to turn this into a track meet. But Royce O’Neale brought a proper pair of cleats to drill six of his seven 3s in the period as well across a 9-of-14 third quarter on 3s for the Suns as a whole.
That got them up three as separation didn’t seem imminent for either side.
Then those two triples set up by Green helped establish that, enough so to control the rest of the contest from there. Phoenix finished with a season-high 24 made 3s on 51 attempts (47%). The 24 makes were one off the franchise record and the fourth time a Suns team has ever reached that figure, per Stathead.
This was another strong Booker outing, his second straight reaching some of his peak performance. He had 27 points on 10-of-21 shooting with five rebounds, seven assists and just one turnover.
The return of reserve wing Jordan Goodwin from a seven-game absence and Grayson Allen from a quick one-game stint in street clothes had major rotation choices put on head coach Jordan Ott’s desk.
The timing made that especially the case, since buyout addition Haywood Highsmith in his first rotation appearance of the season in Sunday’s win over the Charlotte Hornets was a major plus in the categories Ott needs, like on-ball defense and smart decision-making offensively. Highsmith and surging second-round pick Rasheer Fleming assuredly had moved ahead of second-round wing Ryan Dunn in the rotation.
And while Dunn was the last guy in out of that group, he still got in as the 11th man. But it was only five minutes, all in the first half, and Fleming got the most minutes of the trio (17), which is the direction it should be going in regarding those three.
Most notably, in the pinches of Oso Ighodaro dealing with foul trouble defending Giannis Antetokounmpo, Ott went with small-ball for 3:18 in the first half and 8:17 for the final two quarters, a total of 11:35. That’s nearly a quarter, easily the most Ott has ever reached in a game this season.
No one was really the “center” in those minutes, but Fleming and Highsmith were out there for a lot of it to provide as much length as possible. Guys like Goodwin and O’Neale that scale up in defensive assignments help, too. O’Neale did a great job shouldering some of the Antetokounmpo assignment in those patches.
This was only the fourth game Antetokounmpo has played out of a previous 20. He ended up with 22 points, six rebounds, three assists and four turnovers in 32 minutes.
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Comments
149 Comments
"I'm supposed to name anonymous leakers, many who did so criminally, who were never identified, caught and prosecuted? Are you freaking out of your mind with that stupendous nonsense. Where does one get this information?"
You claimed "100,000s" of leakers existed who were never prosecuted. Now you admit they're "anonymous" and "never identified". So how do you know the number is in the 100,000s? You hallucinated a census of invisible people, and now you're tap-dancing away from your own fabricated statistic when asked to substantiate it.
BTW - way to dodge this part of my response and remain focused on your imaginary statistic:
“The FBI investigates approximately 1,200 unauthorized disclosure cases annually. Between 2005-2023, over 400 individuals were prosecuted or had their security clearances permanently revoked. That’s not "virtually never". That’s documented consequences for people who aren't James Comey making your Sunday morning television.”
"Trump is on record as saying he didn't push to prosecute Hillary because she was a former First Lady and he had a moment of compassion."
He didn't prosecute because Sessions recused and the DOJ ethics office advised against it. There was no prosecutable crime in the email handling, as multiple investigations confirmed. Your "compassion" narrative is fan fiction. Trump doesn't have the neurological capacity for mercy. He lost the argument legally. Not because he grew a conscience.
"You still didn't give your whacko theory why Trump wanted those boring documents you claimed he was hoarding? To what end if not his library or research for his memoirs?"
I absolutely did, you just ignored it. Below is what I told you in my last post. Read it this time:
"Trump's motive wasn't a Dan Brown novel. It was Ego Leverage 101, the same reason he kept Obama's letter in the Resolute Desk drawer and sharpied a hurricane into Alabama.
He hoarded foreign signals intelligence and nuclear posture reviews because documents are currency to him. Proof he's still the "big man" with assets he could wave at ghostwriters or foreign guests at Bedminster. Which he literally did, on tape, admitting they were 'secret and confidential'."
"Activist Democrat Judges who rule out of hatred in support of your TDS are honest and forthright."
Cannon was reversed by her own conservative appeals court unanimously. The 11th Circuit called her rationale a "significant deviation from legal precedent." You think conservative jurists like Raymond Pryor and William Pryor are "Democrat activists"? You're confusing "judges who enforce law" with "judges who kiss the ring."
"Trump also allowed the FBI to search his document area. They told him to put a better lock on the door."
I also squashed this lazy talking point in my last response. Again, read it this time:
"They didn't say "add a lock" as a substitute for compliance; they said it after he failed to comply and falsified a sworn statement. It was a Band-Aid on a bullet wound of obstruction. Then, discovering he kept documents after the certification and had moved boxes to hide them from his own attorneys, they got the warrant.
Your lazy narrative of "they just told him to put a better lock on it" erases the 18 months of defiance, the subpoena, and the false sworn certification that happened before that visit. They didn't suggest a lock because he was innocent. They suggested it because he was already committing a felony by obstructing the subpoena, and they were trying to secure the crime scene while building an indictment.
Keep pretending it was a friendly HOA inspection, though. Your ability to compress a year-and-a-half obstruction spree into "why didn't they just ask nicely?" is adorable.
They did ask. He said no. For 18 months. Then he lied. Then he got raided. That's not a "whacko conspiracy theory" either. That's a federal indictment he only escaped because he appointed the judge."
"Biden's attorneys only blasted in and covered up with that BS story when they realized Biden had done worse than Trump. "
"Biden wasn't authorized as Senator"? Wrong. Senators with committee clearances absolutely handle classified materials. The SCIFs exist for that reason. The difference? Biden's team found docs, notified Archives within 24 hours, and consented to searches. Trump hid docs, lied about returning them all, swore he had via certification, then had 300 more found after the FBI raid. Biden cooperated; Trump obstructed. One is administrative error; the other is 18 USC 793, Espionage Act violations.
"Nuclear codes have no value"? The Espionage Act doesn't require selling secrets for profit. It criminalizes unauthorized retention of national defense information that could harm the United States. The indictment includes foreign nuclear capabilities and US military vulnerabilities. You don't need to sell them. You need only willfully retain them and refuse to return them, which Trump admitted doing on tape. The "no monetary value" defense is like saying bank robbery is legal if you don't spend the cash yet.
Oh, I’m not ducking. I’m declining to play your categorization game. You can swap the jackboots for a smiley mask, but I'm still not interested in telling you about my personal life.
Especially when you've already made up your mind about me, based on the laundry list of labels you've assigned in this thread:
TDS sufferer, communist, Castro sympathizer, hallucinating amateur, hate-filled dolt, Mr. AI Roboto, Major Contradickheadshun, ChatGTO, AI Dopple... Then there's my free diagnosis for Epstein Files Derrangement Syndrome.
Now you’re suddenly Mr. Rogers with a wrench.
You watched that address through the same rose-colored lenses that convinced you January 6 was a “90-minute protest” instead of a seditious riot that hospitalized 140 officers.
Trump sounded like a man underwater. Slurring words into mush, losing his place mid-sentence, and trailing off into ellipses like he’d forgotten what room he was in. That’s not "sharp". That’s sundowning in prime time. Calling it "low energy" is generous. I’ve seen DMV clerks with more verve.
Your resume-measuring is pathetic. Your cubicle-mate at the Miami News who sat near Alpha 66 doesn’t make you the El Padrino of Cuban exile politics. It also doesn’t let you revoke Ana Navarro’s
Cuban card because she’s overweight and won’t doesn't worship your Dear Cult Leader. You can be a gold-star member of the Brigade 2506 fan club and still be a racist when you reduce a political strategist to “Fat Cuban” and “traitor to her people”. Proximity to exiles doesn’t launder ethnic slurs into expertise.
You spent two paragraphs name-dropping dead reporters and POW tarmacs like that launders your slurs into expertise. It doesn’t. You’re still just a guy gatekeeping ethnicity from a barstool in Phoenix, screaming "traitor" at a woman whose father actually fought while you were taking notes on his neighbor.
And spare me the “McCain was a traitor” revisionism. You claim you were on the tarmac when he came home POWs in ’73, watched Democrats rip him, and convenitently reduced him to being a backstabber after Trump called him one. You don't have principles. You have transmission delay.
You spent fifty years in journalism only to argue that proximity to a story equals possession of the truth, and that “I was there” beats “I’m correct.” That’s credentialism for dummies. I don’t need to have been at Clark Air Base to know Trump mocked a dead POW’s disability on video,. Just like I don’t need to have worked at the Miami News to know you’re waving around forty-year-old bylines like they’re papal indulgences for current-day bigotry.
I never claimed to be anything. You need me to be an impostor so you can play gatekeeper with your yellowed press passes and war-stories from Clark Air Base. You're not arguing facts. You're staging a credential hostage situation. You spent five paragraphs name-dropping dead Miami News editors and tarmac proximity like those are transferable IQ points, then accused me of claiming "high-level professions" I never mentioned. That's projection wearing a press badge.
Your "vast experience" is just elapsed time plus access. You sat near important people, I read the transcripts. Being "freakin' there" when McCain deplaned didn't teach you the legal definition of obstruction of justice. It just gave you a view of his crutches while you apparently missed the constitutional separation of powers. Proximity isn't expertise and experience without epistemology is just aging.
The guy who vacuumed the Watergate hotel carpet was "freakin' there" too, but he didn't write the indictment. You interviewed Alpha 66 members. I read the NARA regulations both Trump and Biden violated. Which one of us actually cited the Espionage Act correctly in this thread? Hint: not the guy waving his "I knew Leo Suarez" business card.
You claim you'd respect "blue collar expertise"? Please. You dismiss anyone who wasn't sitting in a 1970s newsroom as insufficiently baptized by ink. You're not defending working-class wisdom. You're defending credential aristocracy. The belief that your presence at historical events transmits infallibility by osmosis while everyone else must stay in their "true expertise" lane.
Here's the difference: I don't need to have been at the Miami News to know you pulled "100,000s of leakers" out of your Alpha 66-adjacent imagination, and I don't need a byline to read the 11th Circuit ruling reversing Cannon. Arguments stand alone.
You’re not an expert. You’re just old enough to know better and tribal enough not to care.