Suns earn validation following play-in win vs. Warriors

Breathe easy, Phoenix. The fog on Planet Orange has lifted. The Suns finally stared down an elimination game.

No late drama or white-knuckle nausea. No joyous whooping and hollering from the enemy at the buzzer. No post-game parties in the wrong locker room.

The Suns aced their most important test of the season. And while the details and statistics of their 111-96 victory over the Warriors do not count in regular season or playoff statistics, it was a momentous occasion for our NBA team.

The Suns earned more than victory. They earned validation.

They avoided becoming the first seventh-seeded team to lose a pair of home games during the Play-In Tournament and miss the NBA playoffs entirely. Had they lost on Friday, the shame and stigma would’ve been severe.

Now, we are free to embrace this team for eternity. We can safely place Jordan Ott’s rookie season as head coach into the generational scrapbook. The 2025-26 Suns were expected to be a train wreck, a preview of the dark ages to come. Their predicted over/under for victories was a meager 30.5.

Instead, the Suns rallied around the family for 45 regular-season victories. And now they get to experience a best-of-seven series against the Oklahoma City Thunder, the reigning NBA champion.

Don’t fret, frown or wince about lopsided outcomes. Consider this finishing school. The Thunder are currently the best basketball team on the planet. There could be no better teacher and no better lesson than experiencing the Thunder in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs.

The Suns will be sharing a court with a great team shifting into postseason mode. They will see firsthand what that looks like: the matchups, the adjustments, how a reigning champion conducts itself over the course of a playoff series, and what a great opponent ultimately reveals about the Suns.

That will be very important knowledge moving forward, and a very important experience for the youngest among them, including Ott.

No matter what happens in the coming days, Devin Booker is no longer winless in elimination games; Jalen Green has looked sensational in the past two games; and the bravado of Dillon Brooks has yet to be proven wrong. He’s the one who said the Suns were the monster under your bed, the team nobody wants to play. He’s the one who said he wanted Steph Curry and the Warriors on Friday night.

To our great relief, the Warriors were an easy mark, exactly the kind of team the Suns needed. They were fatigued, sloppy and non-threatening. They committed six turnovers in the first five minutes, many of them unforced errors. The Suns led by 18 after the first quarter, and by the end of the game, they scored a staggering 30 points from Golden State turnovers.

Granted, the Suns are not exactly rolling into Oklahoma City. But they’re not wobbling, either. They are a basketball team free from pressure and flush with house money.

Just enough to make them dangerous.

Reach Bickley at dbickley@arizonasports.com. Listen to Bickley & Marotta weekdays from 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. on 98.7 and the Arizona Sports app.

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