This Suns Loss May Have Hurt Because Phoenix Was Actually Good Enough To Win

You want to be mad about the result of the Phoenix Suns game in San Antonio on Friday night. You want to be pissed about losing 101-100 on the road to the second-best team in the NBA. You want to be upset that Rasheer Fleming missed two free throws that would have put pressure right back on San Antonio, only to see those misses become part of a sequence that now feels destined to live forever in the mythology of Victor Wembanyama. You want to be annoyed that a team holding a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter somehow let it slip away.

And yet, I am having a hard time getting there.

Because the truth is, the fact that Phoenix was even in that position felt impressive in its own right. This team was without Dillon Brooks, Mark Williams, Grayson Allen, Royce O’Neale, and Haywood Highsmith and still found itself trading punches deep into the fourth quarter against one of the best teams in basketball. For long stretches, this did not feel like a roster held together by available bodies and good intentions. It felt like a team competing with purpose, with structure, and with enough grit to make San Antonio work for every inch of the floor.

Some losses leave you irritated because they expose something hollow. This one felt different. This one felt like a team earning its place in the game, earning its opportunity to steal one, earning the frustration that comes with letting it get away. Phoenix did not stumble into this. They built it, carried it, and gave themselves a real chance to walk out of San Antonio with something memorable.

Instead, they became part of someone else’s memory.

That is what stings. Not that they were embarrassed. Not that they were exposed. It is that they were good enough, shorthanded as all hell, to make the moment hurt.

Jordan Ott was impressive all night, both in his approach and in the way the Suns executed what he asked them to do. It was almost enough to steal a win. Almost.

But credit where credit is due, San Antonio earned that ending.

The Spurs were smart in the way they forced Phoenix to burn a timeout with nine seconds left, trapping on three straight possessions and making it clear what they wanted. Their goal was to get the ball out of comfort, out of rhythm, and eventually into the hands of a rookie. They got exactly what they wanted. Rasheer Fleming stepped to the line, went 0-of-2, and the Spurs answered with a buzzer-beater. That is part of why they are the second-best team in the NBA. They understand leverage, they understand pressure, and they know how to tilt a moment in their favor.

And still, I cannot crush the Suns for how it unfolded.

Who else were you going to put in the game? Oso Ighodaro? Ryan Dunn? Jamaree Bouyea with Wemby on him? (if that were the case, then I’m sure Wemby doesn’t foul). Phoenix played the hand it had. It was a short-handed roster, a young group in key moments, and a coaching staff trying to navigate the reality in front of it. They made the choice, they lived with the result, and sometimes that is the game.

That is also growth.

It sucks for Rasheer that those free throws are attached to the final sequence. Nobody is pretending otherwise. But this season has always carried a larger purpose than chasing a result on one random night in March. It is about development. It is about evaluation. It is about finding out who these players are when the moment tightens and the air gets heavy. Rasheer felt that. He will remember it. And one day, if this thing goes the way Phoenix hopes it can, that may be one of those moments he pulls from rather than one that defines him.

And the adjustments, I thought those worked.

One thing I have been saying throughout this road trip is that you cannot keep Devin Booker in primary actions when opposing defenses know he is the guy everything runs through. Good defenses load up for that. They sit on it and they wait for it. So what did the Suns do in multiple possessions late in the game? They shifted Booker into secondary and tertiary actions. On one trip, it got him a wide-open look from beyond the arc, one he simply missed. On another, it allowed him to find Jordan Goodwin in the corner for a massive three. The adjustments are happening. The reads are evolving and the execution still has to be better.

That part is harder when you are missing so many key pieces in the rotation.

Would this have been a nice win? Absolutely. But when the final buzzer sounded, the reality stayed the same. Had Phoenix won, they still would have been sitting in the seventh seed. After the loss, they are still sitting in the seventh seed. So in these final few games, the objective becomes bigger than one result. It is about learning from the opportunities in front of you. It is about storing these moments away, both the good and the painful, and finding value in them later.

Rasheer Fleming will learn from what he experienced on Friday night.

The coaching staff already showed that it is learning too. What happened in Toronto and Boston mattered. Those games did not turn into wins, but they did turn into experiences, and you could see some of that carry over in the way Phoenix adjusted in San Antonio. That is part of this process, especially for a team stretched thin, searching for answers, and trying to build functional habits on the fly.

Maybe that serves them well this postseason. Maybe it ends up mattering at some point much further down the line, in a moment we cannot see coming yet.

Either way, it is hard for me to be mad at that.

Bright Side Baller Season Standings

Oso was solid against Minny, and we continue to see him grow…and move up the standings.

Bright Side Baller Nominees

Game 70 against the Spurs. Here are your nominees:

Collin Gillespie
24 points (7-of-13, 6-of-11 3PT), 2 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals, 1 turnover, +3 +/-

Devin Booker
22 points (8-of-21, 0-of-4 3PT), 5 assists, 4 turnovers, -12 +/-

Jalen Green
17 points (7-of-20, 1-of-7 3PT), 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal, 3 turnovers, -5 +/-

Oso Ighodaro
15 points (7-of-10), 7 rebounds, 7 assists, 1 steal, 0 turnovers, -1 +/-

Rasheer Fleming
8 points (3-of-7, 2-of-5 3PT), 5 rebounds, 1 steal, 1 turnover, 2 blocks, +11 +/-

Jordan Goodwin
5 points (2-of-9, 1-of-5 3PT), 8 rebounds, 3 steals, 0 turnovers, -14 +/-

Who you got?