Turnovers, no Booker, Gilgeous-Alexander MVP contender: Takeaways from Suns loss to OKC

The Phoenix Suns went from bad to worse in Sunday’s 118-110 loss to Oklahoma City in the second of a home back-to-back after losing Saturday to Houston.

They trailed by as many as 20 in the first half after leading by as many as 13, rallied to take a six-point lead in the fourth after falling behind by 24 only to surrender a 22-8 run in a six-minute span to fall before a sellout crowd of 17,071 at Footprint Center that booed them for the first time in a while.

Phoenix (35-26) had won nine straight home games, but has dropped its last two and only have eight remaining at Footprint Center.

The Suns have gone from looking like a team capable of making a run at a top-four seed to falling to seventh in the West while facing the toughest remaining NBA schedule. They have just a one-game lead on Dallas, which owns the tiebreaker over them.

On a night they were without injured Devin Booker (right ankle sprain) and Josh Okogie (right hip injury), who was a late scratch, the Suns got a 31-point effort out of Bradley Beal, a career-high 31-rebound haul from Jusuf Nurkic and 20-point night from Kevin Durant despite OKC doubling him consistently, but couldn’t overcome 22 turnovers that led to 31 Thunder 42-18 points.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander paced the Thunder with a game-high 35 points. Here are takeaways from Sunday’s loss to the top team in the West as the Suns head to Denver for Tuesday’s matchup against the defending NBA champion Nuggets. Phoenix is 0-1 versus the Nuggets (42-19) this season. The two teams meet a third and final time on March 27 in Denver.

Immediate takeaway: Gilgeous-Alexander top 3 MVP candidate

Offensively, the guy has reached a point in his career where he can get any shot he wants. An All-Star starter this season, Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 35 points, nine assists, eight rebounds and just one turnover Sunday in 38 minutes.

So, he scores, rebounds, facilitates and doesn’t turn the ball over.

The Thunder aren’t just a one-man show, though.

Jalen Williams has become the second scoring option as he scored 22 points. Chet Holmgren is in the running for rookie of year and their remaining players star in their roles.

Lu Dort defends, but he can now make an open shot. Josh Giddey has taken a step back as far as improving as a player, but he’s young and talented. They added Gordon Hayward, who is the only big name off the bench, but OKC is a complete team that has to prove themselves in the playoffs.

Now, Booker hasn’t played in both losses to OKC as he sat out Sunday with a right ankle sprain, but OKC has postseason attributes. Can go on a big run, respond to the opponents' big run and have one of the best players in the league in Gilgeous-Alexander.

Yep, he’s a legit MVP candidate. Top 3 for sure with Nuggets big Nikola Jokic, a two-time MVP and finals MVP and Celtics forward Jayson Tatum, who has led Boston to the NBA's best record.

Turnovers, turnovers, turnovers

Booker likely will miss multiple games, the second being Tuesday at Denver, with the ankle sprain that the Suns were still assessing Sunday. Looked ugh as he stepped on Royce O’Neale’s left ankle trying to defend Rockets' point guard Fred VanVleet up top, but the X-rays taken after the game were negative.

Having him Sunday could’ve helped the Suns avoid committing 22 turnovers against a team that leads the league in forcing turnovers, but he just had five Saturday when they totaled 19, which led to 19 Houston points.

Beal, Durant and Nurkic all acknowledged this is preventing them from being the team it can be. Considering they combined for 22 of the team’s turnovers, they needed to hold themselves accountable.

Coach Frank Vogel called out the referees for allowing the Thunder to foul, saying they fouled Durant repeatedly with no calls. Nurkic can't understand how he grabbed 13 offensive rebounds and did not get one trip to the line, but the Suns are one of the NBA's most efficient in ranking 11th in offensive rating. So they can get away with being careless on offense, but against the better teams, that's an oh no.

The turnovers came in a variety of forms on Sunday. Trying to make a cross-court pass like Durant did when the Thunder's Dort stole it from a mile away or Nurkic kicking the ball out expecting Eric Gordon to be there and instead throwing the ball out of bounds.

Beal, who committed a game-high seven turnovers, says the Suns just need to shoot it instead of trying to overpass. Spoken like a true scorer, but Vogel has preached making the extra pass. He also wants the Suns to play instinctively, look to score, but then make the pass if it’s there.

No point guard the ultimate problem?

That’s not easy to do, especially with all the different combinations and lineups, but without a true point guard, Phoenix has chosen to have multiple ball handlers, which can lead to sharing the ball, but also mistakes as multiple players are being asked to make plays for others when that hasn’t been their primary responsibilities.

Then Suns are not only 27^th in the NBA in committing turnovers, but 27^th in points off turnovers. That means they are not only one of the worst in the league in giving up the ball, but they either aren't getting back or on defense in transition or aren't getting a stop after turning the ball over.

There was a 76-second segment of play when Vogel took two timeouts with the fans booing after the second one with 2:02 left in the first half. The Thunder went on a 7-0 burst to go up 60-42 as Isaiah Joe blocked Durant’s shot while Beal and Gordon had turnovers.

That’s the Suns in a nutshell when it comes to turnovers. The injuries are one thing, but if the Suns don’t find a way to curb the mistakes starting with their main guy handling the doubles better, this will be a huge reason why they fall short of a championship.

David Fizdale had enough

Can’t read lips from this far out, but Suns assistant David Fizdale wasn’t handing out birthday wishes during the timeout.

While Frank Vogel waited at halfcourt to talk to an official about a no-call, Fizdale, a former NBA head coach with the Grizzlies and Knicks, seemed to be going at the players on the bench.

Beal declined to reveal what Fizdale said, or how he said it, but did say it was like he punched them all in the chest. Beal added that Fizdale is in charge of the defense and takes issue when the team makes mistakes on that end.

The Suns responded by forcing a 24-second violation after the timeout, but OKC eventually resumed its regularly scheduled broadcast of scoring at will on Phoenix until the Suns seemed to suddenly start defending better and went on a 25-5 run to pull within four, 89-85, going into the fourth.

This shows the Suns can put it together at any given moment, which makes them scary, but this is the same team that took a 17-4 lead to start the game and then gave up a 24-7 run to trail 28-24.

This team should be able to handle adversity better because it has experienced it all season.

The Suns have talked about waiting to get healthy and that they have time to figure it out. Booker could be out at least two weeks, but as Beal said, the Suns really don’t have time to figure it out and better start doing so now.

If the playoffs started today, they’d have to win in the play-in round to make the postseason. That is not where a team that viewed itself as a championship contender to begin the season and still has hopes should start a postseason run, but that’s Phoenix’s reality right now.

Healthy or not, the Suns only have 21 games to figure it out.

Have opinions about the current state of the Suns? Reach Suns Insider Duane Rankin at dmrankin@gannett.com or contact him at 480-787-1240. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @DuaneRankin.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Turnovers, no Booker, Beal shines: Takeaways from Suns loss to OKC