The balance Phoenix Suns guard Jalen Green has to find could not have been illustrated more clearly within the good and the bad than in Tuesday’s 129-114 win over the Milwaukee Bucks.
Green finished with 25 points on 10-of-20 shooting with four rebounds, five assists and three turnovers. In one massively important way, it was his best game of the season. And that comes down to the roller coaster of his decision-making that was a topsy-turvy ride.
Overall, it was a great step in the right direction for Green.
The key for him will be eliminating clusters like his second and fourth quarters, when the issues were evident. But the Suns (38-27) will absolutely live with that if he keeps playing like he did in the other portions of the game.
While some of the good was questionable pull-up jumpers considering his poor efficiency in that area, some of which fueled his 16 points in his first 10 minutes, Green had bunches of good passes on downhill drives, and those continuing to tick up would be a notable progress point.
The whole dilemma of his decision-making can come down to one (good) play he made on an assist to Devin Booker in the mid-third quarter.
When Green started isolating and getting into his handle, he nearly double-dribbled by bailing on a pull-up 3 he almost instinctually jacked up. Instead, with a quick reset pass, he then slashed toward the basket to kick it out to Booker for a 3.
This decision by Green basically sums up the whole article. Nearly lets it go before making a great basketball play. t.co/FW4znardXL pic.twitter.com/m117jyriD1
— Kellan Olson (@KellanOlson) March 11, 2026
That’s big time. It’s only one play but it displays a commitment to Green wanting to play the right way, and that he will be mindful of instances like that in the future.
Green kept that rolling to start the fourth quarter, with two patient drives not rushing into a jumper that resulted in two more 3s for his teammates that got the Suns’ lead up to double digits.
Green then took a more ill-advised 3 before a reckless drive into a defender and then a not-so-great middie before a turnover on a drive let Milwaukee get back within seven, but hey, progress!
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The rest of the game was defined by Milwaukee (27-37) knocking down enough 3s and the difficulty within Phoenix’s rotations off the ball defensively, plus the problem of chasing guys off the line with proper on-ball defense.
The Bucks were 16 for 38 from 3, and 16 of Kyle Kuzma’s 33 points in the third quarter started to turn this into a track meet. But Royce O’Neale brought a proper pair of cleats to drill six of his seven 3s in the period as well across a 9-of-14 third quarter on 3s for the Suns as a whole.
That got them up three as separation didn’t seem imminent for either side.
Then those two triples set up by Green helped establish that, enough so to control the rest of the contest from there. Phoenix finished with a season-high 24 made 3s on 51 attempts (47%). The 24 makes were one off the franchise record and the fourth time a Suns team has ever reached that figure, per Stathead.
This was another strong Booker outing, his second straight reaching some of his peak performance. He had 27 points on 10-of-21 shooting with five rebounds, seven assists and just one turnover.
The return of reserve wing Jordan Goodwin from a seven-game absence and Grayson Allen from a quick one-game stint in street clothes had major rotation choices put on head coach Jordan Ott’s desk.
The timing made that especially the case, since buyout addition Haywood Highsmith in his first rotation appearance of the season in Sunday’s win over the Charlotte Hornets was a major plus in the categories Ott needs, like on-ball defense and smart decision-making offensively. Highsmith and surging second-round pick Rasheer Fleming assuredly had moved ahead of second-round wing Ryan Dunn in the rotation.
And while Dunn was the last guy in out of that group, he still got in as the 11th man. But it was only five minutes, all in the first half, and Fleming got the most minutes of the trio (17), which is the direction it should be going in regarding those three.
Most notably, in the pinches of Oso Ighodaro dealing with foul trouble defending Giannis Antetokounmpo, Ott went with small-ball for 3:18 in the first half and 8:17 for the final two quarters, a total of 11:35. That’s nearly a quarter, easily the most Ott has ever reached in a game this season.
No one was really the “center” in those minutes, but Fleming and Highsmith were out there for a lot of it to provide as much length as possible. Guys like Goodwin and O’Neale that scale up in defensive assignments help, too. O’Neale did a great job shouldering some of the Antetokounmpo assignment in those patches.
This was only the fourth game Antetokounmpo has played out of a previous 20. He ended up with 22 points, six rebounds, three assists and four turnovers in 32 minutes.
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