The Suns finally exhaled. One win, and a lot left to prove.
The Orlando Blueprint: What the Suns take into Houston and San Antonio
Phoenix won by 13 while losing the glass by 15. That recipe beats Orlando. Can it hold up against the Rockets and Spurs?
Thursday’s 117-104 win over Orlando snapped a four-game losing streak, and after weeks of struggle, this fan base needed it just as much as the team did.
Now the hard part. Phoenix is 2-5, and the win came against a Magic team missing Paolo Banchero and Jalen Suggs and coming off two straight games under 100 points. Credit Phoenix for handling it on the second night of a back-to-back, but nobody is booking a playoff run off that.
This is the middle of a four-games-in-six-nights homestand that could make or break the season before it started. Portland, Houston, and San Antonio are three of the top six teams in the West. Orlando was supposed to be the “easy” one. Phoenix is 1-1 through the stretch, and the bar was 2-2. That means stealing one from the Rockets on Saturday or the Spurs right after. Easier said than done.
So forget the box score for a minute. The real value of the Orlando game is that Phoenix showed, for 48 minutes, what a...