PHOENIX — Whatever’s going on with the Phoenix Suns at the moment, they’re just going to have to keep working through it until things click back into place, and that arduous process continued in Friday’s 118-116 win over the New Orleans Pelicans.
The catalyst was one strong Devin Booker quarter.
“Kind of probably in that flow state where he’s in a really good rhythm,” Suns head coach Jordan Ott said of it.
Booker scored 18 of his 32 points in the third quarter, 13 of which came when starting center Oso Ighodaro picked up his fifth foul midway through the period, forcing Phoenix to play a whole lot of the remaining 17 minutes and change without an integral piece.
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The spurt created the largest separation of the game for the Suns, 14, after their quality of play in the first half shared similarities with the recent stinkers we’ve seen the last two weeks. Even with the effort up, the quality did not shift all that much.
With how the game was going in the first half, when Booker was 2 for 6 and not looking like himself at all, that created a pivotal stretch for the opening of the final frame when he had to rest.
Phoenix made a handful of plays to hang in there, particularly with great minutes from rookies Khaman Maluach and Rasheer Fleming. The duo of Booker and Ighodaro returned with 6:48 to go and the Suns up eight.
It was not tidy from there, even with the Pelicans (20-45) clearly fading.
A Booker missed lob, open corner 3 and a shot blocked left the door open in his first few possessions.
New Orleans was then still within eight with 90 seconds remaining, when a complacent Grayson Allen was stripped of the ball by Dejounte Murray for a breakaway layup. A missed open 3 by Collin Gillespie was followed by Ighodaro fouling out on the loose ball, and Murray then drilled a 3.
Booker then dribbled out the shot clock before forcing up an ugly look in search of a foul, to no avail. New Orleans then called a timeout down three with 11.7 seconds left, and the Suns got some fortunate luck on the free-throw shenanigans to escape with a victory.
Once it got down to the Suns inbounding without a timeout up two with five seconds to go, Royce O’Neale turned it over on a pass toward half-court that Zion Williamson fumbled, leading to the ball deflecting back into Phoenix’s hands to run out the clock.
It might just continue being that hard for the Suns right now.
Phoenix (36-27) took a season-high 58 3s, a number never designed to get that high, which speaks to how off-kilter this whole game was.
Jalen Green had a better night statistically, shooting 8-of-17 for 25 points with a season-high seven trips to the foul line. He, however, was still not really helping the offense get in rhythm, as evidenced by him sitting for almost all of the last six minutes and change.
Maybe it’s because of the back-to-back with Booker just returning from an injury, but the offense primarily ran through Green when he was out there and it wasn’t really close. Booker’s flurry in the third quarter was really the only time things revolved around him.
When Booker was off the ball, New Orleans’ lengthy perimeter defenders were cutting off passing lanes and Booker didn’t have the extra effort and fight to get open. When Booker was getting the ball, it was a lot of double-teams, and the swing passes would often find Green.
Despite Green making a few better decisions with the ball, there were still a whole lot of empty possessions where no one else was touching it and Green was jacking up a bad shot. You can see it weighing down the team offense.
Phoenix simply has too many players like Gillespie, O’Neale and Ighodaro that rely on ball movement to bring their offensive value, which the three each have a decent amount of when things are flowing.
What’s particularly perplexing about this is that Dillon Brooks (left hand fracture) had his fair share of tunnel vision and inefficient nights that Phoenix was able to still achieve good-to-great offense through.
Is the difference how much longer a standard Green possession on the ball is, as opposed to Brooks’ more methodical, quick go-to moves as a scorer?
Whatever it is, the balance is simply way off right now, and it goes beyond Green just missing jumpers or making the wrong read on a drive. The Suns have got to figure it out immediately or the offense will continue to suffer.
Even on a night where Phoenix got back up to its usual work in key categories, like making 20 3s, getting 23 points off New Orleans’ 15 turnovers and producing 29 second-chance points, there was still some sense of pulling teeth to get the offense back in a decent range of the 110s.
Gillespie was the most noticeable guy to try and rack up the energy without Brooks and Jordan Goodwin (left calf strain). He grabbed a career-high five offensive rebounds and made four 3s for a dozen points.
Nice flashes of Khaman Maluach rimpro moments tonight.
Both end up as blocks for him — but watch him reset the 2.9 with intent then get to the spot first & jump off 2 **with verticality**
This’ a bit of Duke on Duke crime here. pic.twitter.com/kPjDwVO17b
— Stephen PridGeon-Garner ? (@StephenPG3) March 7, 2026
Maluach played 20 minutes and had five blocks to go with four points and four rebounds. He had some fantastic moments as a rim protector, particularly in that second half on Williamson, the best driver in the league.
Gillespie noted that “the game moves so fast when you’re a young guy” and that Maluach will benefit massively from this stretch without Mark Williams (left foot stress reaction) since there’s no better way to pick up on that than getting real minutes.
“He was awesome tonight in terms of just (his) energy, playing through mistakes, obviously, as a young guy.”
Collin Gillespie on Khaman Maluach in the Suns’ win over the Pelicans. Maluach set a career-high with five blocks.
“He makes a huge impact on the defensive end and I think once he’s in those situations more and kind of thrown in the fire right now and just let him learn that way,” Gillespie said of Maluach. “Once he gets through the speed of the game, he’ll get even better. He was awesome tonight.”
pic.twitter.com/ByyeXvdfw0
— Arizona Sports (@AZSports) March 7, 2026
Allen racked up eight assists and four steals on a 4-of-10 shooting night for 12 points. He made a few key mental mistakes but made up for it in two departments where Phoenix sorely needs to find contributions.
Brooks was arrested late Thursday night for suspicion of DUI. Gillespie said Brooks, who was at the game on Friday, apologized to the team.
“Obviously, we woke up to it this morning and just hate to see it for him. … We all make mistakes. He knows that, he owned it,” Gillespie said. “We got his back. Human beings makes mistakes, we all make mistakes (and) learn from it. … It doesn’t make it right, we’re just happy that he’s OK, nobody else was hurt and he’ll learn from it.”
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