PHOENIX — Life without Devin Booker (right hip strain) sure isn’t fun for the Phoenix Suns, who put up their second straight dud of an offensive performance on Sunday in a 92-77 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers.
Grayson Allen (right ankle injury management), Dillon Brooks (left hand fracture) and Jordan Goodwin (left calf strain) were also out, putting a ton of pressure on Jalen Green and Collin Gillespie to get the gears of the offense spinning.
They did not all night, with the prerequisite fuel of a decent shooting night nowhere to be found. Phoenix missed 23 of its first 27 3-point shots, and backup two-way guard Jamaree Bouyea was the only Suns player with any type of paint presence offensively (as the smallest guy on the team).
The Suns’ point totals by quarter were 20, 20, 17 and 20, shooting 34.8%, 34.6%, 30.4% and 58.3% by quarter. The overall total of 77 points is the lowest for Phoenix since Oct. 2017, per Stathead. Diehard Suns fans will remember that one well, a 48-point opening night walloping via Portland the year Earl Watson got fired three games in.
Suns head coach Jordan Ott did not take the easy way out of attributing this strictly to the second game of a back-to-back after playing 58 minutes on night one, or the injuries.
“This is not just a one-night thing,” he said postgame. “We’ve struggled to score for an extended period of time.”
With the recent defensive woes as well, both ends of the floor are not consistent for the Suns (33-25) at the moment.
They are going through their worst rut of the season, losing six of their last nine, and will have to find solutions fast before play-in positioning starts to be a real point of conversation. At the end of Sunday, Phoenix is in seventh place in the Western Conference standings, 2.5 games ahead of eighth and five games clear of both ninth and 10th.
Some positive spin? Phoenix only has two games in the upcoming week and has four days between games right after, so if Booker could actually be back right after his one-week timeline expires, the Suns are halfway there. The bad? They host Boston (37-19) and the Lakers (34-22) for those two games.
The Blazers (28-30) are another team, like Orlando in Saturday’s double-overtime win, that builds its roster by prioritizing length and size. Even though they’ve been extremely hit or miss on defense this year, Portland used those tools to deny the Suns space routinely.
Portland had its own share of offensive ineptitude when its All-Star Deni Avdija tweaked his back just a minute into the game on a night it was also down Shaedon Sharpe (left calf strain). But with a few minutes left in the first half, the Blazers starting making shots, and they shot 50% percent in the third quarter to lead by as many as 20.
If it wasn’t for some great energy from the Suns rookies, this would have gotten out of hand. But with all the players out, Ott welcomed a youth movement the most he has all season.
Second-round pick Rasheer Fleming was the first sub off the bench, a very encouraging sign, before both Amir Coffey and Isaiah Livers played ahead of him in the second half. There was not much to Fleming’s play that suggested he earned this demotion, nor the play of Coffey or Livers thriving in a way that would lead to the adjustment.
But Fleming did return late in the third quarter, and played solid basketball. There’s not much for players in his role to do beyond play good defense, rebound and be in the right spot on offense. He did that for the most part.
“I thought it was good. He continues to take steps,” Ott said. “I thought physically in games like this, his physicality, athleticism, his length. … Overall I thought he’s taken steps and we can see it right in front of our eyes.”
First-round pick Khaman Maluach played five minutes in the first half, joining backup 5 Oso Ighodaro for all of them. It was Maluach’s first crack at a rotation role all season, and you know what, it went fine!
Ott complimented how Maluach’s improvements at the G League level translated.
The 19-year-old ran the floor, set solid screens and the ball found his energy. This included a corner 3 in the second quarter, a part of the No. 10 overall pick’s game he didn’t get to show at Duke that he wants to incorporate sooner rather than later.
MALUACH pic.twitter.com/INIiVnwr6E
— Cage (@ridiculouscage) February 23, 2026
Did Maluach and Fleming screw up? Yes!
Maluach’s timing on both ends is all over the place and is going to be a bumpy ride until he gets a chance consistently. Fleming needs everything to slow down for him to feel out when he can be aggressive. As they say, reps remove doubt. And reps in G League cities like Sioux Falls and Edinburg are not going to remove nearly as much doubt as actual NBA minutes.
Both Maluach and Fleming returned once Portland started to run away with it in the late third quarter, and the duo made a few more plays to give the Suns the most energy they had all night, cutting the Blazers lead from 20 to a doable 14 entering the fourth quarter. That is why they should play.
That’s when Gillespie finally started hitting shots, knocking down a trio of 3s to cut it to 11 with seven-and-a-half minutes to go.
Phoenix, however, eventually needed the offense to find a flow to get within a few possessions and that never happened. Ott tried going small as a last resort, to no avail.
Maluach had seven points and seven rebounds in a career-high 16 minutes while it was also a career high for Fleming with 22 minutes bringing six points, two steals and two turnovers.
Green shot 6 of 16 for 13 points with one assist and one turnover. He’s now played in three straight games and five of the last six, enough of a foundation for him to start to get rolling.
In terms of his road back from so much time out, Green said he’s “close” to fully trusting everything and getting back to playing the way he normally does. That comes down to more of a feeling for him, one he expects to get back soon.
His offense has been pretty inconsistent, something he will have the freedom to explore. These are the types of outings that are really going to put Green’s decision-making to the test, the swing skill for him as a young player. Outside of more touch as a shooter, that is all that’s really holding him back from being at an All-Star level.
Green has always been bashful with middies, a bit too much considering his blah efficiency.
There are times when he steps into space where you’d wish he’d just keep driving, and from there either trying to finish while looking for free throws or finding the pass. Doing that is one thing, and consistently making the right read on that last dribble is another. It’s a balance that clicks into place a lot easier when other guys like Booker and Allen are prominently involved on the ball, so this is a tough environment to improve in at the moment.
Gillespie’s previous season high for turnovers was four and he ended up at six on Sunday. It was one of the few times this season we’ve seen his size be the major disadvantage it honestly should be more often. His 45 minutes the night prior were probably a solid factor as well.
He added a team-high 18 points, with three assists.
This was a tough game for Mark Williams, especially on defense. He’s had his handful of poor performances on that end in the last two months and you can see how much easier it becomes for opponents to score on the Suns when he’s in as opposed to when Ighodaro is.
The numbers back it up.
Since Dec. 20, a 31-game sample, the Suns’ defensive rating goes from 115.5 when Williams is in to 105.7 when he’s out, per NBA Stats. That split before Dec. 19, a 27-game sample, was 110.1 for when Williams was on and 114.7 when he was off. It’s dangerous to use those numbers as an all-indicative decider on if he’s been good or bad on a specific end of the floor but they at least confirm what the eye test has said lately.
Ott’s actions backed it up too. He called a timeout less than two minutes into the second half and pulled Williams for Ighodaro. Williams did not come back in.
He finished with six points and five rebounds in 15 minutes. He’s got to turn it around for Phoenix to get anywhere in the next handful of games.
Ryan Dunn did not have a good go, shooting 1 of 9 in 31 minutes. This is a big couple of weeks for him to lock down his rotation spot through a down year, or else other guys have a good chance of moving ahead of him for crunch time in April.
Blazers second-year big Donovan Clingan was the best player on the floor. His interior presence was a factor throughout, producing 23 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks.
Allen played only 23 minutes in regulation of Saturday’s two-overtime win before getting all 10 extra ones, so it was not a surprise to see him sit the second game of a back-to-back.
