Through one preseason game, the Phoenix Suns accomplished their goal. They put a product on the floor their fans enjoyed and played a style that will be easy to get behind, no matter the win total the next seven months yield.
Clear intent and connectivity with that effort was all over a 103-81 win against the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday.
Phoenix’s goals on both ends of the floor were obvious, something not even a tandem of Benoit Blanc and Sherlock Holmes could uncover last season.
Common plays in regular team defense, such as clean switching and decisive closeouts, were back. The offense wanted to keep it moving and avoided stagnating. There were heavy pursuits for rebounds, full-court pickups on the ball and more of the hustle the two previous iterations of the Suns were deathly allergic to.
All of that can’t happen without buy-in from the players. At least in the first week of October, head coach Jordan Ott has it.
Guys like Grayson Allen, Dillon Brooks and Nigel Hayes-Davis were routinely involved in those high-motor areas, a club Allen was at times completely alone in last year beyond when Ryan Dunn, Oso Ighodaro and Collin Gillespie were on the court.
Brooks, in particular, kept executing basic defensive actions like getting over a screen, picking up a deflection and denying driving lanes in a way that reminded you that’s what a perimeter defender is supposed to be doing. The year-to-year difference really is that jarring.
I was convinced that if you did this in a Suns jersey last year that you would be arrested pic.twitter.com/L0WMhfcDEs
— Kellan Olson (@KellanOlson) October 4, 2025
The Lakers, without Luka Doncic and LeBron James, brought the usual aimless level of play we see in the preseason, so that resulted in the Suns jumping on ’em early, with the lead growing to 25 less than five minutes into the third quarter.
Phoenix was without Jalen Green and Mark Williams, two starters and the pair that offer the most offensively beyond Devin Booker, which makes them pretty darn important.
In the place of that pair of Suns were Allen and Ighodaro.
Allen in there over Gillespie is a nod to how much of a point guard Booker will be, while Ighodaro was a pleasant surprise, given our brains are trained to expect the more seasoned player like Nick Richards to get that spot. Ighodaro is the best stylistic match for how Ott wants his centers to play on both ends, and with a lot of this year being about player development, that type of choice is sound.
A clear point of emphasis is that despite Booker being the “point guard,” he is not going to bring the ball up the floor as much as one typically would.
Someone else was doing so very often, and it was up to that ball-handler to either get Booker the ball on the designed action to actually start the possession or just go downhill on an audible with a “Omaha.” When the latter happened, there was rarely a good result, but one the coaching staff clearly wants that ball-handler to pursue if they see an opening.
That’s something to monitor early in the year.
Point Book looked good. He was producing quality looks nearly every time he attacked with the ball, which is all he wants to do.
No look pic.twitter.com/n5aaOGcb1X
— Kellan Olson (@KellanOlson) October 4, 2025
Booker amounted to 24 points (8-for-19) and seven assists with one turnover in 25 minutes and the offense really struggled when he wasn’t the one initiating or when he was resting. His on/off court numbers this season will be legendary.
Allen added 13 points, with 10 for Brooks. Dunn in a starting role offered four points (2-for-3) with eight rebounds, three assists and a steal.
Phoenix’s initial 10-man rotation made up all of the minutes until the 2:32 mark of the third quarter and did not include any of the rookies (Khaman Maluach, Rasheer Fleming and Koby Brea). When Ighodaro and Hayes-Davis play well, that is subsequently who gets blocked out of playing time.
That is a balance Ott will have to play with over the season.
Maluach, the No. 10 overall pick, was the first rookie to play, while Fleming checked in at the beginning of the fourth quarter.
Green has a “low-grade” hamstring strain that presumably will sideline him for at least the China trip, and with the nonsense schedule Phoenix was given that has them playing back in America two days later, that doesn’t give Green a good shot to play at all in the preseason. He did, however, get shots up at shootaround and was mobile.
Williams is not injured and is undergoing what you’d like to call a “return to conditioning program,” a designation that has become more common the last few years, but he’s been working diligently on his body for three straight months now, so it’s more of a “let’s be as cautious as possible program” while refining his approach to prevent future injury. He has yet to play in 5-on-5 at practice, all while participating in every other way possible.
Both Green and Williams will travel with the team to China.
Los Angeles’ James is dealing with a glute issue while Doncic is coming off competing in EuroBasket over the summer. Also not playing were Maxi Kleber (quad), Marcus Smart (Achilles tendinopathy) and Adou Thiero (knee).
As covered in an offseason review, these Lakers are relying on a supporting cast full of injury and/or consistency concerns. That did not include Thiero, who it looks like fell to the second round of the draft because of some concern around that knee.
Deandre Ayton, in his Lakers debut, had one point (0-for-2), eight rebounds, an assist, a steal, two blocks and four turnovers in 18 minutes.
