Suns 115, 76ers 101
PHOENIX -- Center Miles Plumlee scored a career-high 22 points and added 13 rebounds as the Phoenix Suns bounced back from their worst loss of the season with a 115-101 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday night.
Plumlee took seven stitches to his chin after a third-quarter fall but did return to the game.
Guard Goran Dragic matched Plumlee with 21 points for the Suns, who lost by 29 points at Golden State on Friday night but used 31 fast-break points to overcome a poor 3-point shooting night (5 of 21) to win for the ninth time in their past 11 games.
Guard Eric Bledsoe scored 20 points and forward Marcus Morris had 18 as the Suns improved to 11-4 at home and won for the ninth time in December.
Forward Thaddeus Young led Philadelphia with 30 points and 10 rebounds, his sixth double-double of the year. Philadelphia has now lost nine of its last 10 games and is 5-21 since starting the season 3-0.
Guard Michael Carter-Williams had 27 points for the Sixers but needed 28 shots from the field to get them. Guard Troy Wroten had 22 points as Philadelphia played without starting forward Evan Turner (knee) but stayed in the game with 11 3-pointers, one shy of a season high.
The Sixers have now lost 13 straight games on the road. They haven't won away from home since beating the Wizards 109-102 in their first road game at Washington on Nov. 1.
The Suns led just 60-59 at the half but took the lead for good with a 10-0 run early in the third quarter, with a Dragic free throw extending their lead to 78-69 with 6:04 left.
The Suns led by as many as 15 in the fourth quarter, hitting four of their nine 3-point shots to pull away.
Phoenix put up 15 fast-break points in the first quarter in addition 12 early points inside from Plumlee to build a nine-point lead. Forward Markieff Morris' putback of a missed free throw by forward P.J. Tucker at the buzzer gave the Suns a 36-27 lead at the quarter.
But Philadelphia, which came into the game as the worst 3-point shooting in the league, hit nine in the first half and went 6 of 10 from behind the arc during a 32-point second quarter. Center Spencer Hawes hit two and Wroten had one in the final 2:34 as Philadelphia ended the half on a 13-4 run to cut the Phoenix lead to one.
NOTES: Philadelphia coach Brett Brown said he decided to sit F Evan Turner after shootaround. "It's my decision. Evan would want to play tonight," Brown said. "I feel like over the years (as an assistant to Gregg Popovich in San Antonio) I have learned a lot from Pop about the rhythm of an NBA season and trying to care for the players. Turner had missed only one game to injury in his four-year NBA career. ... Suns coach Jeff Hornacek played 132 games for Philadelphia from 1992 to 1994, coming to the Sixers from Phoenix in the Charles Barkley deal. ... Hornacek on the Suns' worst loss of the season, a 29-point drubbing on Friday at Golden State: "It took 28 games to have a bad one like that. The best thing to do is give it the old (former Suns coach Cotton Fitzsimmons) saying and flush it down the toilet." ... The Phoenix bench is averaging 37.8 points per game, fifth best in the league. The Suns entered the game with a 9-0 record at home when the bench outscores the opponent's reserves.