Suns snap losing streak to get back in final sprint of playoff race

PHOENIX — How much of Sunday’s 120-98 win over the Toronto Raptors was the Phoenix Suns getting back to what they do best will determine if they still have enough left in these last 10 games to still push for the playoffs.

Phoenix made 15 3s and scored 97 points through just three quarters and led by 28 to avoid crunch time, where persistent meltdowns occurred over the last week. Head coach Jordan Ott said the team was giving each other constant reminders of that throughout the game to stay engaged.

A lot of the offensive firepower came from Devin Booker and Jalen Green. Booker finished with 25 points, six assists and two turnovers on 9-of-15 shooting and Green added 20 points, seven assists and two turnovers on 8-of-15 shooting. This got both guys back on track after a brutal last few games.

You’ll remember that when Phoenix was most recently winning games prior to its five-game losing streak, this was the formula. A Booker and Green bonanza. It wasn’t the hellish defensive edge and energy that endeared the Valley for most of the season.

But that was here too! The Suns, through admittedly still too many mistakes and easy takes to the rim for Toronto, were fighting to get back to what they do. When you’re slumping as a basketball team and fluttering away from your identity, the only solution is busting your ass until you can get back within arm’s reach of it. Then ya gotta snatch it and not let go.

We’ll see if Phoenix can get back there, as well as to its ball movement. The Suns only had 24 assists on 18-of-40 3-point shooting (45%).

If you flip this result with the awful loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday on the first game of the back-to-back, it would all make sense. Sometimes it just doesn’t, you shrug and say “that’s basketball.”

“It is what it is — tough stretch of the season game after game, so we just wanted to capitalize on the night after a heartbreaker last night,” Booker said.

While some of the aforementioned mistakes continue to come from the rookie pair of Rasheer Fleming and Khaman Maluach, the duo is making enough of a consistent impact through them to be an overall positive.

“I understand the group has the right intention and do understand it’s a lot of guys’ first time around the block, so the willingness to learn through mistakes and not be scared of the moment is what lasts,” Booker said of the rookies.

Fleming had five of his seven rebounds on the offensive glass with 11 points, two steals and a block in a career-high 29 minutes for the second straight game. Maluach provided seven points and seven rebounds, while Ryan Dunn filled up the stat sheet with 12 points, three rebounds, two assists, three steals and a block.

That is immensely helpful without Grayson Allen (left knee injury management), Amir Coffey (left ankle sprain), Haywood Highsmith (right knee injury management), Dillon Brooks, Mark Williams and Royce O’Neale (left knee soreness).

Brooks’ 4-6 week re-evaluation timeline for his left hand fracture kicks in on Tuesday. Mark Williams is currently in his 2-3 week window for the stress reaction in his left foot and that ends on Thursday, so we should get some type of update by then.

Allen missed his fourth straight game after tweaking his left knee, and he has now been out for 28 total this year through a number of minor injuries he would need time to recover from.

He was well on his way to the best season of his career before getting stuck in this cycle. Allen’s 35.4% 3-point shooting this season, which would be his lowest since his rookie year, speaks to his difficulties this year, and the splits really dropped off in December once these ailments ticked up. He was also absent for 20 games last year under similar circumstances.

Suns’ playoff picture leaves much work to do

We are in counting math season for the rest of the schedule and the Suns’ now-slim playoff hopes at a record of 40-32.

Was Sunday enough of a spark to kickstart what the Suns will need to get into the top six? Ott didn’t fully agree with that notion, noting how he does feel like the Suns have been playing better in the last couple of games, and it just came down to how they closed. So maybe there has been a breakthrough.

There has to be, because it’s now sprint time with 10 games to go.

“To be completely honest, we put ourselves in a tough position to make it to that six now, so I think right now we just need to focus on playing the right brand of basketball,” Booker said.

One of these silly squads sitting third-to-seventh in the standings alongside the Suns for months finally got hot, and it was the Los Angeles Lakers of all teams, who are now 46-25 to be steered clear of this nonsense. The Houston Rockets (43-27) aren’t totally safe just yet, but for now, the focus goes to the Denver Nuggets (44-28) and Minnesota Timberwolves (44-28).

Phoenix does not have the tiebreaker over Denver and faces the Nuggets on Tuesday. The stakes are enormous. If the Suns lose that game, that means they’d need the Nuggets at minimum to lose six of their remaining nine games to even have a chance to catch them (and that’s if they won out).

If Phoenix beats Denver, that number of required Nuggets losses would drop to four, a still highly unlikely pursuit given what it demands from the Suns, but one that is at least more plausible.

To say it straight, I don’t get a whiff of any bubble magic and an undefeated 10-0 close, so the Suns will likely still need quite the Nuggets collapse. And Denver just won on Sunday with its rotation fully healthy for the first time in many months.

This probably comes down to the T-Wolves.

The Suns own the tiebreaker, so they are truly four back in the loss column with 10 games to go for the Wolves, too. Of those 10 for Minnesota, seven come against groups with a lot to play for.

Houston comes up first on Wednesday, before two of the Wolves’ next three will be against a Detroit team (51-19) without Cade Cunningham, attempting to secure a top seed in the East.

Minnesota will also have the Sixers (39-32), Hornets (37-34) and Magic (38-32) fighting through their own play-in concerns and in the second-to-last game take on the Rockets again. Houston having its own stakes for that game could prove vital.

It is realistic to see four-plus losses there for Minnesota. The bigger question, though, is if it is realistic to see the Suns either running the table or coming damn close to take one last stab at it in the final week. Doesn’t feel like it, but maybe Sunday is the jolt the Suns needed.

So how does the play-in look? Still a safe seventh seed?

The Suns a week ago were never seen as a threat to fall to the eighth seed or lower, because they had never exhibited such inconsistencies that led to losing. After quite the few weeks, though, here we are.

They are fortunate the Los Angeles Clippers (35-36) have lost four of their last five. L.A. sits four games back in the loss column with 11 left. If we split the Clippers schedule into tankers and challenges, it’s five of the former (Milwaukee twice, Indiana, Sacramento and Dallas) and three of the latter (Toronto, San Antonio and Oklahoma City).

We know L.A. has the firepower to compete at the top, so the Suns have more work left to do. The tiebreaker is still to be determined, which could come down to division winning percentage.

The Suns are 10-6 with one game remaining against the Lakers, while the Clippers are 8-6 with the Kings and Warriors left. So, the only way the Clippers win it is if they win both of those games and the Suns lose theirs.

Two of the Clippers’ three other contests are against the Portland Trail Blazers, who are quietly up to 35-37 after winning four of their last six.

But fortunately for the Suns, it would take some huge wins for the Blazers (without the tiebreaker) to catch them and get to north of 40 wins. Portland has four straight tankers coming up (Brooklyn, Milwaukee, Dallas and Washington), an opportunity to keep things rolling before a tough close of facing the Clippers, Pelicans, Nuggets, Spurs and Clippers again prior to wrapping against the Kings.

While Stephen Curry could be back in the next handful of games for the Golden State Warriors, they are in a freefall, now 33-38 after going 8-19 in their previous 27 fixtures. Perhaps they’ve got one more spurt left, but in terms of catching the Suns, they’d need to beat some premium competition left on their schedule to do so.

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