PHOENIX — Alright fellas. We get it. Holy smokes.
The last two wins for the Phoenix Suns shouldn’t have had to serve as a statement toward anyone. You should all know by now that they are completely legitimate and will have some postseason aspirations to attend to. But just in case, they keep delivering haymakers to quality opponents.
After handily taking care of the Detroit Pistons on Thursday, it was an absolute rout of the Cleveland Cavaliers the next night, 126-113.
Devin Booker (right ankle sprain) was out for both contests against two of the best teams in the Eastern Conference.
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Phoenix is now 30-19. That is a win total a lot of writers had them pegged either directly at (my hand is up) or right around. The Suns still have six games to go until the All-Star break.
Friday was honestly ridiculous. The final score was salvaged by Cleveland (29-21) in garbage time after Phoenix led by as many as 33 in the fourth quarter.
“Our defensive energy was at a high level for most of the night,” Suns head coach Jordan Ott said. “To force that team into that many turnovers, (then) we were doing something right on that end.”
In total, it was 31 points off Cleveland’s 23 turnovers. Ten Suns players had a steal and four swiped at least two.
It is unbelievable how well everyone is playing on this team. Seven Suns players were in double figures, and after a lot of the story this season has been about the bench creating separation, it was the starters this go-around.
Dillon Brooks was +24 in 24 minutes with 27 points on 9-of-14 shooting. Grayson Allen added 13 and was +25, while Collin Gillespie was one of three Suns to hit at least four 3s, going 4-for-6 with five assists and one turnover.
Royce O’Neale was another with a 4-of-8 mark, and this absurd Jordan Goodwin season keeps on flying high, with his 5-of-8 mark from downtown finally matching his remarkable defensive activity.
Goodwin the night prior hounded MVP candidate Cade Cunningham into 26 points on 22 shots and played a huge role on Friday in getting All-NBA guard Donovan Mitchell up to eight turnovers to go with just 12 shot attempts for 16 points.
“Goody has been neutralizing every single best player on every single team for the past three weeks. That should be on notice,” Brooks said. “He’s been playing out of his mind on the defensive end … He’s having a special season this year and that’s got to be recognized.”
It was 17 points for Goodwin with three steals. He’s been so incredible on defense in the last month especially that it’s time to start talking about whether he deserves All-Defense consideration, even on limited minutes.
This was not one of those nights where the Suns’ energy levels were simply too high for a team like the Cavaliers to even want to compete. They were physical and chippy on defense too.
It was a weird one. It didn’t feel like Phoenix was particularly effective early on, and Cleveland was certainly doing more offensively. On top of that, the Suns in the first half had zero second-chance points.
But in order to make up for 39% shooting, Phoenix got 21 points off 15 Cavaliers turnovers to lead by five.
Then the Suns hardly missed.
They made 14 of their first 17 shots in the third quarter to extend the advantage to 21 and ended the period shooting 80%. Coming out of that, Phoenix scored on four straight possessions while holding Cleveland scoreless, and it was over. A 109-79 lead at 10:13 to go. Ball game.
Phoenix hit 23 3s and totaled 31 assists, the type of offensive outburst that felt inevitable with the issues on that end as of late, regardless of who was or wasn’t playing.
This was Jalen Green’s return from a three-game absence. A tweak of his right hamstring required a brief break after he missed two-and-a-half months to a re-aggravation. Ott never indicated this was that again and said the MRI was clean. The indication was this was just a mental block for Green to get through, and that is still a work in progress.
When Green was not in the game, he spent a lot of time trying to keep his hamstring fresh. He did a few light sprints and shuffles during most timeouts. There was a lot of looking toward the bench around the end of his shifts as well, suggesting the cardio still needs to catch up too.
He’s clearly not at a level of functionality and/or trust to play to his full capabilities. Green was not able to create separation too often in his downhill attacks, his bread and butter. When he did rarely get to the rim, it was because he was just about fully pushing it on the turbo button.
It did not help his chances of getting right for the future that he had a bad fall in the mid-third quarter. Green was going up for a rebound and lost his legs on the way down, forcing him to land right on his back. He was down for over a minute before walking back to the bench on his own and staying in the game.
Jalen Green on the ground after a scary fall pic.twitter.com/4w6LaSuSc7
— Cage (@ridiculouscage) January 31, 2026
Green went on to toss a swing pass to O’Neale for a 3 and then hit his own step-back triple to extend the lead to 17 at the 5:37 mark of the third quarter. He looked more and more hobbled as that shift went on.
The blowout did not offer an opportunity to see if he would have played in the fourth quarter anyway. He did not speak postgame, so no update from the man himself. Ott said they believed the hamstring came out fine and it was the “hip contusion” bothering him.
Green finished at 11 points, four rebounds, one assist, two turnovers and a steal in 16 minutes. Seven of his nine shot attempts were from 3.
Darius Garland (right toe sprain), Evan Mobley (left calf strain) and Max Strus (right foot surgery) were out for a Cleveland squad clearly not at full strength. With that said, it had won six of its first seven games since this latest Garland injury and has capable talent beyond that trio.
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