PHOENIX — It was fun while it lasted in a 119-105 Phoenix Suns loss to the Houston Rockets on Tuesday.
The return of Kevin Durant to the Valley, Jalen Green’s first game against his former team and Dillon Brooks facing a team that traded him brought a ton of energy and intensity to the gym, a jolt to the Suns’ system that was sorely needed after abysmal energy the last week and decaying form the last two-plus months.
But Houston stuck with it after a 24-0 Suns run and 21-point Suns lead in just over six minutes. Eventually, they relented.
A 38-21 fourth quarter for the Rockets brought the Suns right back to square one after lots of progress was made in a playoff-like atmosphere.
Green said he felt like the Suns only kept that aforementioned intensity for two quarters. As far as the drop-off and how to fix that?
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“I think we just need to double down on defense,” Green said. “Getting stops and really focusing on that end.”
This was extremely reminiscent of a Suns loss in April two years ago to the New Orleans Pelicans, when Zion Williamson dominated and Phoenix’s best efforts to snap out of the funk it had been in for many weeks was nullified. It made those efforts feel like a mirage, and that was ultimately the same closing feeling on Tuesday.
Phoenix’s offense was nullified by a Rockets defense, like several others lately, that is cutting off passing lanes and keeping help defenders attached to shooters. Opponents are A-OK with letting Phoenix’s three primary options go to work individually as long as the ball movement can’t get sprung.
The Suns solely relied on the free-throw line to score. They made a season-high 34, six more than their previous best, and shot 7-of-31 from 3-point range with 15 assists and 17 turnovers. The Rockets clearly have the blueprint. Phoenix’s assist totals in four losses to Houston are 11, 14, 23 and 15, resulting in point totals of 92, 98, 97 and 105.
Houston, an elite offensive rebounding team, mauled the Suns on the offensive glass 37-17. Given how the Rockets are an elite squad in that regard and bring so much more size to the table than Phoenix, the question of why the Suns aren’t playing some of their bigger players exploded through collective fan rage as the second half spiraled.
Here’s the main thing about that.
Like a boss fight in a video game, if you force the Suns into improper execution, effort or shot-making, the layers of armor you’ve been hacking through dissipate, leaving the boss completely vulnerable and exposed. Free hits from there.
In other words, once Phoenix is off its game enough, it becomes open season. The greatest story in the league that was on pace for 50 wins turns into the 30-win team it was supposed to be in a snap.
The roster construction of this Suns unit is incredibly poor. We knew this back in October. All the 6-foot-5 guys that are the team’s best players. The question marks at center, whether it was health, skillsets or consistency. The lack of trustworthy wings with size. The lack of a reliable point guard.
Head coach Jordan Ott made the absolute most of it for as long as he could. He worked borderline miracles in doing so.
The miracle is over.
We did not see the Suns’ size be a major detriment to them through half of the season. That armor was staying up. Teams with massive advantages in length were not able to clobber them on the offensive glass.
And if they did, Phoenix’s elite shooting options on the other end and versatile playmaking outweighed that negative. Or, the Suns themselves were improbably matching the offensive rebounding through their own efforts. Defensively, they would force lots of turnovers to win the possession battle back.
But that balance is now totally out of whack with a far lazier defense that doesn’t work as hard consistently, and that is affecting an offense reworking its flow with three scorers figuring out how they all function together.
Even on nights the Suns force turnovers, like Tuesday, they turn it over too much themselves. Turnovers were 19-18 Rockets.
And that is always going to doom the Suns, because the glass will always work against them. The armor is no longer up, so feel free to go to town.
“We gotta somehow find other ways to match that possession game,” Ott said, acknowledging the Suns have never been and never will be a good defensive rebounding team.
Here are some really important numbers to focus on if you could please entertain them through your anger at rotation choices.
Prior to Feb. 1, the Suns were sixth in their own offensive rebounding rate and the rate it gave up was 25th. That’s a proper trade-off!
But since Feb. 1, the Suns are ninth in their own offensive rebounding rate and the rate it gave up was 29th. Less proper of a trade-off!
And the most important tidbit to remember: The Suns played even larger personnel over that time when the rebounding got worse. Rasheer Fleming broke into the rotation after the All-Star break, and it was around that time for Khaman Maluach too. Ryan Dunn was consistently in there up until the last few games.
If anything, you were getting your bigger lineups. And the rebounding numbers were worse! Not better! It has rarely been about size.
The reality too is that Ott’s options to solve that size problem are two rookies and a second-year wing that was incredibly inconsistent this season. He should be playing at least one of them by now to rebalance things, and it’s Fleming, even with what we just covered.
It’s also about to be the second week of April with three games left, and he’d rather try to rekindle the prior balance than find a new one. Plus, to act like that decision or not starting one of those two bigger wings are the reasons why the Suns’ quality of play is swan-diving the last week is ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as primary blame going Ott’s way after what he achieved most of the year with a totally broken roster the front office put together. Not him.
So, the game.
A psychologist wouldn’t call it healthy. But describe it as mildly as discontent or as severe as hate — there’s nothing quite like some negative energy to use as motivation.
Some version of that, or at the very least the “revenge game” feeling of competing against former teammates, fueled the Suns to their best intensity and energy in many weeks. It helped that further boosts arrived quickly in the form of made shots.
Everything was working offensively en route to 37 points in the first quarter that included four made 3s in the opening four minutes as part of that 24-0 run.
But part of that opening frame included Houston keeping Phoenix off the 3-point line and the Rockets defense kept making the Suns drive the ball instead. They went 1-for-12 from 3 the rest of the first half and 11 of their 20 points in the second quarter came at the free-throw line.
Midway through that second quarter, Durant and Brooks got into a lengthy exchange that included Brooks pointing at the scoreboard, presumably letting Durant know the Suns were up double digits.
That was not wise.
Durant was much more engaged offensively the rest of the way. While it didn’t spark him into a flamethrower tear of efficiency, he was locked in and making great plays with the ball. A lot of that was the source behind Houston recovering from 21 points in the first to 33 in the second.
Devin Booker also got a nonsense technical shortly after, which doubled up the swing of momentum.
FULL MOMENT: Dillon Brooks has words for Kevin Durant then KD cooks him on next play pic.twitter.com/UhkKnE1OHd
— NBAbzy (@nbabzyy) April 8, 2026
Houston was then only down three at halftime.
The third quarter is where the Suns lost this game.
For the second straight frame, they could only generate consistent offense on free throws. Thirteen of the Suns’ 27 points came at the foul line, failing to capitalize on Houston also losing the plot offensively and relying almost entirely on offensive rebounding. That made it 24 of the Suns’ 47 points in the middle three quarters, when they had six assists and seven turnovers.
Thirteen of the Rockets’ 27 points were on second-chance points. I would encourage Suns fans complaining about size as the predominant factor in this to go back and watch Phoenix’s own rebounding efforts in those situations. A lot of inattentive off-ball defending was committed by Suns defenders in the second half.
That carried over to the fourth quarter, when Houston ripped off an 8-0 run on an Alperen Sengun dunk, Amen Thompson offensive rebound and dunk, Aaron Holiday six-foot floater via little resistance and a Thompson slam in transition.
This was an indication that the Suns’ toxic issues from the last week specifically were still in there and ready to come out.
They did, as the rest of the game was clinical. The Suns collapsed just as much as the Rockets seized it.
Durant was 8-of-20 for 24 points with four rebounds, three assists and two turnovers. You could tell once the comeback started to get real in the second quarter that he wanted this one bad.
He did not want to give Brooks credit for sparking him or the comeback itself, instead saying Brooks needs those type of dustups to get himself going.
“I don’t think about guys like Dillon Brooks when I’m out there playing,” Durant said. “I mean it’s fun, it’s cool to compete against guys that play hard but I don’t need him or anybody to give me extra motivation to play.”
Booker had 15 of his 31 points at the free-throw line with eight assists and three turnovers. Green was 5-of-14 and Brooks 3-for-12, with neither guy finding a flow in their 1-on-1 scoring, combining for two assists and five turnovers.
Mark Williams had a great first quarter where he looked like the center everyone was so excited about in the first 20-ish games of the season before fading quickly. He finished with 19 points and eight rebounds.
The Los Angeles Clippers (41-38) won on Tuesday, putting them two games back of the Suns (43-36) in the loss column. Phoenix should be fine as long as it takes care of business on Wednesday against the Dallas Mavericks. If it wins on Wednesday and the Clippers lose to the Oklahoma City Thunder that same night, the Suns clinch the seventh seed.
But if the Suns drop that game and/or the Clippers beat the Thunder, it’s about to be a very interesting final few days of the regular season.
Follow @KellanOlson
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