The host Phoenix Suns and Philadelphia 76ers enter their game Saturday looking to regain their touch on the offensive end after near-misses Thursday.
The Suns scored only 15 points in the fourth quarter and could not hold a 14-point lead in the final 10 minutes of a 101-97 home loss to Golden State.
“We have to find a way to score more than 15 in the fourth,” Suns coach Jordan Ott said.
The 76ers led the Los Angeles Lakers by as many as 14 and nearly recovered from a 16-point fourth-quarter deficit before taking a 119-115 road loss.
“For 30 minutes of the game, we were really generating good offense,” 76ers coach Nick Nurse said. “Then it got a little bit tough and sticky and physical, and we couldn’t really generate great shots.”
The loss snapped the 76ers’ five-game winning streak as they prepare for the fourth of a five-game road trip that has included wins over the Los Angeles Clippers and Warriors.
The Suns have lost their last two at home, to the Clippers and Warriors.
Phoenix was outscored 25-7 after taking a 90-76 lead with 10:11 remaining and was scoreless in the final 3:55. The team missed its final six field-goal attempts, four by go-to guy Dillon Brooks.
Devin Booker and Jalen Green were again out because of injury, and Grayson Allen (right knee) walked off the floor with about three minutes remaining after a scramble under the Warriors’ basket and did not return.
Booker (ankle) has missed the last seven games and Green (hamstring, hip) has been sidelined for six of the last seven. Both are listed as questionable for Saturday’s game, while Allen has been ruled out.
“Where we’re at right now, every possession offensively we’re going to have to execute,” Ott said.
Brooks scored 24 points and the Suns made 16 3-pointers, but the ball stuck in the fourth quarter against an aggressive Warriors’ defense that hounded the 3-point line.
“Our second group found a rhythm by moving the basketball, and then it stopped,” Ott said. “It’s really hard to move it even late in the game. … We’ve got to find a way somehow to get a shot up on the rim and at least give us a chance.”
Suns center Mark Williams had 11 points and 10 rebounds but did not play in the fourth quarter, when reserve Oso Ighodaro played all 12 minutes and had four points.
“A little bit on both ends,” Ott said of the decision to stay with the more mobile Ighodaro. “Especially defensively, just our ability to be up and aggressive.”
The Suns are nearing the midway point of a stretch in which they play 16 of 19 games at home, a recipe to gain ground as they look to avoid the play-in round in the postseason. They are in seventh place in the Western Conference, one game behind Minnesota for the final guaranteed playoff spot.
The 76ers made a minor trade at Thursday’s deadline, sending Eric Gordon to Memphis in a deal that enabled them to convert Dominick Barlow’s two-way contract to a standard NBA deal.
Barlow is averaging a career-high 8.5 points and 5.0 rebounds in 41 games (34 starts). He had 13 points, three rebounds and two steals against the Lakers.
“He certainly more than deserved it, right?” Nurse said. “A two-way guy starting that many games out of the block for a team that’s got a winning record, I don’t know if that’s ever happened.”
–Field Level Media
