{"id":536083,"date":"2026-01-14T13:35:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T13:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/536083\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T13:35:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T13:35:15","slug":"suns-showed-their-spine-even-in-a-tough-miami-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/536083\/","title":{"rendered":"Suns showed their spine even in a tough Miami loss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The road trip opened with a punch in the mouth, as the Suns got blitzed early in Miami. Honestly, it felt inevitable. Erik Spoelstra does not lose sleep over three straight road losses. He sharpens knives. The Heat came home ready, shot 57% from the floor, hit 7 threes, and tried to bury Phoenix before the luggage was unpacked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">But this version of the Suns does not fold. They do not flinch. They came out swinging after halftime, outscored Miami 67-56, forced 6 steals, got 2 techs, and turned the paint into a battleground. Devin Booker went down, then came back, and that matters. Had this been last year, I don\u2019t know if he would have returned. There is a togetherness with this group that feels real. They want the fight. They want it together. And Booker displayed leadership by doing so.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Phoenix even held a late lead, but sometimes the basketball gods get weird. Bam Adebayo started impersonating Steph Curry from deep, and that was that. You cannot win them all.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Now we turn our focus to Booker\u2019s ankle, which is of note, especially with Jalen Green already out Thursday in Detroit. Six games. East Coast. Physical. No freebies. This trip just turned into a full-scale stress test. Game on.<\/p>\n<p>Bright Side Baller Season Standings<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Rolls Royce! He\u2019s starting to get on one of those heaters, and now he\u2019s up to three total BSBs on the season.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"_1eezmj01\" href=\"https:\/\/platform.brightsideofthesun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2026\/01\/Bright-Side-Baller-2.png?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0,0,100,100\" data-pswp-height=\"3000\" data-pswp-width=\"3000\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\"><img alt=\"\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"fill\" class=\"w91vxg0\" style=\"position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'\/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'\/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'\/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'\/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3C\/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E&quot;)\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Bright-Side-Baller-2.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bright Side Baller Nominees<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Game 40 against the Heat. Here are your nominees:<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Grayson Allen<br \/>25 points (9-of-19, 6-of-14 3PT), 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 steals, 2 turnovers, -2 +\/-<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Dillon Brooks<br \/>25 points (11-of-24, 1-of-10 3PT), 4 rebounds, 2 steals, 3 turnovers, +1 +\/-<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Devin Booker<br \/>24 points (6-of-19, 1-of-5 3PT), 9 rebounds, 9 assists, 1 steal, 4 turnovers, -3 +\/-<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Mark Williams<br \/>18 points (8-of-13), 14 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, 1 turnover, -6 +\/-<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Collin Gillespie<br \/>13 points (4-of-8, 3-of-7 3PT), 5 rebounds, 2 steals, 0 turnovers, +8 +\/-<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Royce O\u2019Neale<br \/>8 points (3-of-10, 2-of-8 3PT), 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal, 1 turnover, +3 +\/-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The road trip opened with a punch in the mouth, as the Suns got blitzed early in Miami.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3791],"tags":[7,62461,6,2065,472,4045,604],"class_list":{"0":"post-536083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix-suns","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bright-side-baller","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-phoenix","12":"tag-phoenix-suns","13":"tag-phoenixsuns","14":"tag-suns"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115893721007791268","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}