It was the Phoenix Suns’ sloppiest game in weeks and yet their highs soared enough for a 116-110 win over the Philadelphia 76ers in Jalen Green’s return, a sign of the potential this group has at full strength for the first time all season.
Phoenix missed its first nine shots and didn’t knock down a 3 for the first 14 minutes of the game. Once those started going crazy in the middle quarters, the Suns were still giving away the ball far too often and were prone to some defensive lapses to be up four at the half.
The Suns had 14 turnovers through three quarters but matched that with 14 3s, a nod to how much shooting firepower is in this fully stocked rotation. That had the lead at 13 and the Suns started pulling away before those two-way mistakes persisted.
That’s when Green made a big impact, all without the ball.
Philly got within seven at under three minutes to go, and Phoenix turned to the trustworthy screening action involving Devin Booker and Grayson Allen. That got Booker a matchup he isolated, and with both Green and Allen one pass away, no help defense came. Bucket.
Book in the clutch… so you know how this clip goes ?
27 PTS tonight for Uno. pic.twitter.com/ZxgDkhYSAX
— Phoenix Suns (@Suns) January 21, 2026
Green then had some great on-ball defense the next time down with the matchup the Sixers had been hunting earlier in the game.
VJ Edgecombe hunting Jalen Green out.
Jalen Green accepts it, & simply guards his yard. pic.twitter.com/SQv0hjVFhF
— Stephen PridGeon-Garner ? (@StephenPG3) January 21, 2026
Off a Suns miss, the 76ers tried to get downhill quickly, and that’s when Green again held up strong around the basket defensively to keep the Suns stabilized with a nine-point lead and just over 90 seconds to go. Improbably, mistakes popped up again, but never enough to turn the free-throw shenanigans into a one-possession score.
Phoenix’s 22 turnovers were its second-most this season. Philly got 28 points off them.
Green played 20 minutes, spurts of 5:49, 3:21, 5:28 and 5:18. Ott has made it clear he will start when fully healthy, for those choosing to debate that.
The most notable element of his play was the early two-man game chemistry with Oso Ighodaro, a perfect match to improvise dribble-handoffs and ball screens to catch opposing defenses off guard and capitalize on Green’s elite quickness. Ighodaro’s got some agility to him as well, a skillset Green wanted to find early.
There’s the downhill burst for Jalen Green, which will help Phoenix’s offense to an immense degree pic.twitter.com/ekyZiII8H7
— Shane Young (@YoungNBA) January 21, 2026
Green was clearly trying to play at a dictated pace, willing to give his defender an extra step so he didn’t get too sped up. Eventually, he will find those pockets to hit the turbo button that no one can stop, all with more direct drives that match the tempo Ott’s offense has thrived at all year. There were a few opening driving lanes he deferred taking in lieu of feeding the guy one pass away on the wing.
He got a bit more aggressive in the second half, with his most head-on drive coming on this take from the third quarter.
There’s the downhill burst for Jalen Green, which will help Phoenix’s offense to an immense degree pic.twitter.com/ekyZiII8H7
— Shane Young (@YoungNBA) January 21, 2026
Which sets up step-backs like this one:
THATS NASTY JALEN GREEN pic.twitter.com/NRtbITE1N4
— Cage (@ridiculouscage) January 21, 2026
No one on the roster brings that explosivity as a driver or individual space creation for his jumper. Sprinkling that into games like this one provides another dimension to a Suns team that already has a whole lot of ’em.
Jordan Goodwin was absolutely tremendous for the third time in a week. He is one of the main reasons the Suns have an elite bench, one that outscored Philly 58-28. Goodwin was simply all over the place and finished with 16 points, four rebounds, two assists and two steals.
He played 20 minutes as the “ninth man” in a playing-time crunch that is going to be based on a lot of feeding who is rolling. It was him tonight. The perimeter players to crack 25-plus minutes were Booker (34), Brooks (30), Allen (29) and Collin Gillespie (28). Booker scored a game-high 27 points.
To that point, with how direct and blunt some of the rotation tweaks already are going to be, you wonder if that extends further given there are now more options at Ott’s disposal.
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Would he ever sit Brooks for the conclusion of games? Tuesday inspired the thought. He and Booker have had a handful of games where they are not locked in on both ends, specifically on defense. With that, Brooks did not have the middy going, missing 11 of his 13 shots, and he does not spur ball movement when the shot is clanking. On an easy “blender” sequence in crunch time off an instant double toward Booker, Brooks didn’t move the ball and instead took an out-of-control finish while Green was wide open in the corner, a pass every other 20-point-per-game scorer in the NBA makes.
Again, Ott has terrific options. Some nights, Goodwin or Gillespie or O’Neale or Allen will be playing demonstrably better than the volatile Brooks, so is that ever on the table? What about with Green?
It’s not exclusive to the perimeter! The change in rhythm for the Suns between when Ighodaro and Mark Williams are on the floor is becoming alarming. It is obvious why. Ighodaro keeps building up his rapport with teammates even further, while Williams is clearly not on the same page as consistently. Williams only played nine minutes in each half, with Ott pulling him at the 3:21 mark of the second quarter to let Ighodaro close. That’s something he has done at the end of games and did again on Tuesday, but not as often in the first half.
Whether it’s extending the rotation to three centers and including Khaman Maluach, letting Ighodaro reach over 25 minutes more (like he has in just nine contests this year) or opening the door to small-ball lineups, we’re pretty much there when it comes to a sizable change in Williams’ role. Time to earn that Coach of the Year praise, coach!
Gillespie and O’Neale both held starting spots with Green coming off the bench. Allen was the guy originally used as the “fifth starter” when Green played in his previous two games, so the expectation was for Allen to hold that spot, but he has remained a reserve behind O’Neale since coming back from injury.
It’s an interesting choice. O’Neale has been the “pigeon” on the perimeter, otherwise known as the on-ball defender teams target most frequently, and with much success. He’s also not as impactful of a driver or playmaker in the ways Allen is. While Allen gets picked on defensively as well, he has held up better on the quicker ball-handlers this season, and he’s obviously the better shooter (even though O’Neale’s numbers are great this year).
But perhaps the edge is seen in how the additional offensive punch from Allen isn’t required in the starting lineup with so much already there, and is better deployed off the bench. What is more worth watching is what lineups Ott closes with, and on Tuesday, it was Booker, Green, Brooks, Allen and Ighodaro.
Joel Embiid did not play, as this was also a back-to-back for Philly and he doesn’t do those anymore. We’d need three hours to properly evaluate his entire career to this point, but it’s a fascinating case study of extreme highs and lows, and if those highs are worth the lows. His six-year peak included a MVP and finishing as runner-up on two different occasions. Sandwiching that is a combined five-year period of the start of his career and these two seasons following his MVP that tallies up to 73 games played and 297 games missed.
Embiid was the closest thing we’ve seen to Shaq since that diesel fuel provided one of the most unstoppable forces the sport has ever seen. And yet, was that worth it for all this? Maybe? Honestly, I’d need a long time to answer that question for myself.
He’s only turning 32 years old in two months, while the 35-year-old Paul George was essentially a late scratch after the expectation was he would play. George is a vastly different player now both in athleticism and confidence, an honestly sad watch these days considering how dynamic he was in his prime. Embiid has three more years of max guaranteed money on his deal beyond this year, while George has two. Those two albatrosses will temporarily restrain what Philly can do despite nailing it in the draft on two young explosive guards.
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