{"id":561861,"date":"2026-01-26T12:50:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T12:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/561861\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T12:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T12:50:16","slug":"suns-vs-heat-was-a-duel-decided-by-pace-pressure-and-missed-shots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/561861\/","title":{"rendered":"Suns vs Heat was a duel decided by pace, pressure, and missed shots"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you are a gunslinger, you show up to the dusty road at high noon. You lock eyes with the opponent. Somewhere, a stereotypical tumbleweed drifts through the silence. The moment arrives. You reach for the holster. You take your shot.<\/p>\n

That is what the Suns tried to do against the Miami Heat on Sunday night. They showed up. They stood in the street. But when it was time to fire, there was not enough ammunition to finish the job.<\/p>\n

And they did not help themselves. I don\u2019t know if they knew where they left their bullets.<\/p>\n

The shooting was rough. 37% from the field. 7-0f-35 from deep. That is not surviving a duel, that is misfiring before the bell rings. The rebounding was no better. 15 chance points allowed in the first half, extra bullets handed right back to the opponent. Ball movement never found a rhythm either. 14 assists on 37 made shots, an assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.4, possessions ending without purpose.<\/p>\n

Miami plays at the fastest pace in the league, and on this night they were quicker to everything. Quicker to loose balls. Quicker to decisions. Quicker on the draw. Phoenix finished with 6 steals, never able to flip the script or tilt the floor.<\/p>\n

It did not matter that Miami was on the second night of a back-to-back. It did not matter that they did not get into Sky Harbor until 4:30am after being stuck on the tarmac in Utah. None of it mattered. They had more ammunition. They were sharper with their shots. And when the dust settled, that was the difference.<\/p>\n

Bright Side Baller Season Standings<\/p>\n

Kudos to Devin Booker for the effort against the Atlanta Hawks. He picked up his 12th Bright Side Baller of the season, though I am sure he would trade every one of them for a healthy ankle without a second thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m too sad\u201d got plenty of votes, which felt appropriate given the night, but the rightful winner still earned it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bright Side Baller Nominees<\/p>\n

Game 46 against the Heat. Here are your nominees:<\/p>\n

Dillon Brooks
26 points (11-of-23, 2-of-5 3PT), 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, 2 blocks, 0 turnovers, -7 +\/-<\/p>\n

Grayson Allen
18 points (4-of-18, 1-of-11 3PT), 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 fouls drawn, 1 turnover, -4 +\/-<\/p>\n

Mark Williams
11 points (4-of-6), 8 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 block, 1 turnover, +10 +\/-<\/p>\n

Collin Gillespie
11 points (4-of-12, 3-of-6 3PT), 4 rebounds, 2 turnovers, -9 +\/-<\/p>\n

Isaiah Livers
9 points (4-of-4, 1-of-1 3PT), 5 rebounds, 2 steals, 1 block, -5 +\/-<\/p>\n

Royce O\u2019Neale
8 points (2-of-10, 0-of-7 3PT), 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals, 2 turnovers, -10 +\/-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you are a gunslinger, you show up to the dusty road at high noon. You lock eyes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3778],"tags":[7,62461,144,295,189,3881,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-561861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-heat","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bright-side-baller","10":"tag-heat","11":"tag-miami","12":"tag-miami-heat","13":"tag-miamiheat","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561861","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=561861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}