Game Recap: The funeral march has begun as Suns lifelessy lose 133-95

The Suns didn’t just lose to the Warriors. They surrendered.

Your season is dangling by a thread. Win, and you live to fight another day. Lose, and while the math might still give you hope, reality doesn’t. So what do you do? How do you respond when the stakes are this high? What pride still simmers in your soul when the lights are the brightest and the walls are closing in?

For the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday night, back home after a winless road trip and facing a surging Golden State Warriors squad, you hoped — maybe even prayed — you’d see that pride. A spark. A defiant pulse from a team backed into a corner. But instead, what you got was more of the same: a soulless, gutless, disconnected display from the highest-paid roster in NBA history.

There was no urgency. No resistance. No fight. Just a quiet unraveling, again, in front of a home crowd that deserved better. The final score? 133-95.

Devin Booker didn’t score in the second half. The reserves were in with ten minutes still on the clock. That’s not just waving the white flag. That’s throwing it in the trash and walking away. This season isn’t ending with a whimper or a limp. It’s being dragged across the finish line, lifeless, by a team that stopped caring a long time ago.

The loss drops the Suns record to 35-44, is the seventh loss in a row, and leaves them hanging by thread. The Suns need to win their last three games, and the Dallas Mavericks need to lose their next three games in order for Phoenix to make the Play-In. So wear black tomorrow. That could be it.

Game Flow

First Half

The game began with Steph Curry doing Steph Curry things. It didn’t take long for the four-time champion to get the ooo’s and ahhh’s going.

The Warriors started the game 5-of-8 from deep, with Curry sniping 2-of-3, helping Golden State to go up 10 points. Oh, and then Budenholzer wasted his challenge on some dumb out-of-bounds play. So that was cool.

For the 145th time this season, in 319 total quarters played, the Suns allowed the opposition to score 30+ points. Yep. That’s 45% of the time.

Phoenix surrendered 37 first-quarter points to the Warriors, who shot a blistering 54% from the field and 46% from deep. Steph Curry led the charge with 13 points, while Devin Booker played the entire quarter and dropped 11 of his own. Still, the Suns could only muster 24 points in the frame.

The Suns’ defense continued to be porous in the second, as this little exchange between Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, and Stephen Curry showcased.

The Suns were just -2 during the Booker-on-the-bench minutes which, all things considered, isn’t a total disaster. But once he checked back in, it didn’t take long for things to spiral. Phoenix quickly found themselves down by 21, and the gap ballooned to 28 as they played defense with all the resistance of an NBA All-Star Game.

The Suns scored a measly 19 points in the second quarter while allowing 30+ yet again. Sure, Booker led all scorers with 21 and had a team-high four assists, but when your defense is made of tissue paper and you gift-wrap 10 turnovers, you end up down 69-43 at the half, drowning in a 26-point embarrassment.

Second Half

Then came the third quarter. The Suns managed just 18 points, sleepwalking through another stretch of uninspired basketball while the Warriors casually ballooned their lead to as many as 36.

Whatever motivational magic Mike Budenholzer tried to conjure at halftime must’ve evaporated on contact, because the team stumbled out of the locker room and proceeded to shoot a pathetic 7-of-27 from the field (25.9%) and 3-of-13 from beyond the arc. Inspiring stuff.

Even Devin Booker was now infected with the disease of “meh”, going 0-of-4 in the quarter.

Warriors 95, Suns 61 after three.

The fourth? The team was led in scoring by Damion Lee and Monte Morris. That’s all you need to know. Ball game.

Up Next

We’re right back at it tomorrow night as the Suns welcome the best team in the NBA, the Oklahoma City Thunder, to PHX Arena. Phoenix is 4-11 on the second night of back-to-backs this season…so we’ll see.

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