Just when I thought the Phoenix Suns’ season was essentially over, well, they proved me wrong once again. While the patient may be on life support, it’s still a bit too early to start planning the funeral. The Suns’ win against Chicago coupled with Dallas’ loss to Indiana on Wednesday put the Suns back in the Play-In race at 10th.
I’m sure there are plenty of fans out there thinking, “So what? They’ll blow it before the end of the season.”
Well, with the toughest remaining strength of schedule in the NBA, that may be true but if you haven’t been watching the team lately then you might not be aware that they’ve actually seemed to finally wake up and realize that maybe playing some defense might matter.
And it has...that and playing with some energy and enthusiasm for a change.
The key to success for the Suns is defensive disruption. Thus far, that's been occurring as they've forced 4 turnovers which have led to 8 points in the first five minutes of the game
— John Voita (@DarthVoita) March 20, 2025
If they can keep it up, who knows what might happen?
With that in mind, here’s the rundown on where things stand in the Play-In race as of today for those of you who still have hope.
Suns/Mavericks
The Suns and Mavericks are tied for 10th in the West at 33-37. The Suns own the head-to-head tiebreaker (3-1) with Dallas, though, so they don’t actually have to finish the season with a better record to finish ahead of them in the playoff/play-in standings. Dallas has a much easier remaining schedule than Phoenix, but injuries have also ravaged their roster. Because they are hard-capped so close to the first apron, they can’t even hand out any 10-day contracts to fill out their roster until April 10.
Oh yeah, and their two-way players are running out of games they are available to play for the big team...and that same hard cap situation prohibits the team from converting any of them to standard contracts which would allow them to continue playing. If the Mavs can’t field the NBA minimum of 8 players for a game, they would actually have to forfeit that game.
Suns/Trail Blazers
Portland sits just two games behind the Suns in the standings and could catch up and take that 10th spot for themselves, but they don’t exactly have a cakewalk schedule for the rest of the season (9th hardest). Although the Suns and Blazers split their season series 2-2 this year, the second tiebreaker is conference records and the Suns presently hold the upper hand in that tiebreaker. The Suns’ conference record is 21-25, and the Blazers’ conference record is 16-30. With just 12 games to go for both teams, the Suns are in the driver’s seat at this point.
Suns/Spurs
San Antonio is three games behind Phoenix and still has a chance at 10th but their remaining strength of schedule is the 5th most difficult with one more game to be played against the Suns. The season series against them is tied 1-1 and a Suns win in that one ensures they win the tiebreaker.
With Fox and Wemby out for the rest of the season, it will be a very tough hill to climb for them to reach that 10th spot.
Suns/New Orleans/Utah
New Orleans and Utah...well, they’ve already been eliminated.
Suns/Kings
As a final note, the ninth spot isn’t totally out of reach. Sacramento presently holds on to that spot and is three games ahead of the Suns. It’s probably out of reach with only 12 games to go, but if the Suns win their season finale against the Kings, they would tie up their head-to-head season series with the Kings at 2-2. The Suns presently hold a nice edge in the second tiebreaker, division records, 9-5 vs. 4-10. Although 9th is probably too far out of reach, it sure would be nice to play that 1st play-in game at home instead of on the road...and it is still a possibility.
Yes, it may turn out to all be fool’s gold hopes, but it’s still too early to turn out the lights just yet.
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