PHOENIX – The second year of a Phoenix Suns roster led by Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal continues to be about health.

Just as Beal returned from missing a game in Tuesday’s 104-93 win over the San Antonio Spurs, Durant sprained his left ankle midway through the second quarter and did not return.

“You know it’s part of our league,” Suns head coach Mike Budenholzer said of injuries. “We are no different. I’m sure there isn’t a team in the league that doesn’t have some guys in and out of the lineup to deal with. Hopefully we teach and learn a style of play that is good for everyone, regardless of who is healthy and who is not.”

Booker played all 20 games, but Beal returned after sitting out multiple games for the fourth time. Beal’s season-high streak stands at six games so far, while Durant played Phoenix’s first nine games before bouncing back in the next seven games. Tuesday was only his fourth game back.

“I just understand that everyone goes through this,” Booker said. “All teams have to deal with this at some point in the season. I think it’s a special time where other people are given more opportunity to get a chance because you never know what’s going to happen at the end of the season or even in the playoffs where you just have to figure it out. Nobody talks about injuries after the end of a season.”

The Big 3 didn’t debut until Dec. 13 last season, game No. 24. It took until Jan. 6 for the trio to put together a real string of games, 16 in a row. This season’s total was half of the 82, 41. Even more worrying is the total of two, two, 16, two, one and 18 games. Just two legitimate extended periods of time together on the pitch were far from enough.

This year it’s been two, one, four, two and now this one game against Spurs.

These periods, such as (most of) the first few weeks of this season, are crucial. And the Suns need more of it.

“The more time out there, the more things we figure out, the more situations we get into that we learn from,” Booker said.

Maybe the time spent together is more important and the constant back and forth is exaggerated, but from everything we’re told about collaboration and building continuity in teams, it’s the interrupted rhythm that matters.

Maybe it’s because Chris Paul was in the building, but the thought of what he said near the end of the 2022-23 regular season, from the night of Durant’s ankle injury, prevented Phoenix from growing as a unit after the trade , echoed again and again.

“Anytime he’s not out there or other guys in our rotation, we’ll get there, but to really see what it looks like long-term, we’ve got to try to get our guys,” Paul said in March 2023.

This year isn’t as extreme as that situation or last year, but it’s a foreboding experience that the Suns have to hope doesn’t happen again.

The Suns manage a comfortable win

An overperforming San Antonio team (11-10) sunk a little back to earth, and a competent enough effort from the Suns got the job done.

Phoenix (12-8) sold out Victor Wembanyama inside the arc, a strategy that paid off immensely. The Spurs started the game 2 of 7 from 3-point range before missing their next 18 attempts. This didn’t result in as big a deficit as it should have been for them, but kept control of the game even though they could have easily lost.

Wembanyama went scoreless in the first half before scoring 12 points in the first 4:06 of the third quarter to bring San Antonio within four points. A 32-23 Spurs third quarter that took advantage of a slowed Suns flow without Durant seemed to win the final frame and the final game before Booker scored 12 of his 29 points to decide everything.

Backup point guard Monte Morris was there for most of that spurt after not playing in the first half. In these eight minutes his value was +13, with four assists and zero turnovers.

Spurs guard Devin Vassell was 10 of 14 from the field and scored 25 points to give them some momentum on offense, but Wembanyama (6 of 18) couldn’t continue that hot start to the second half and the Spurs continued to score 3 points and finished with 8:44 (18.2%).

Booker reached 15,000 points in his career, becoming only the 61st player in league history to do so for a franchise. Only Giannis Antetokounmpo and Stephen Curry have scored more points for a single team since Booker entered the league in 2015. Booker is the second Sun to reach this point total and is 639 points away from eclipsing Walter Davis’ franchise record of 15,666. Considering Booker’s current 24.7 points per game, he’ll likely break that sometime in late January or early February.

After being off the bench for 31 minutes in Jusuf Nurkic’s first game due to a bruised right thigh, rookie center Oso Ighodaro came into the starting lineup on Tuesday. He performed well again, contributing seven points, three rebounds, two assists and two steals in 28 minutes.

Because Nurkic’s contributions are very competitive and the gap between his production and his play is very large, there is at least some momentum toward a shakeup in the way the rotation is shaping up at No. 5. Nurkic was rock solid for most of last season and gives Phoenix real size, physicality and experience, but the flaws in his game have become much more apparent this year.

According to Cleaning the Glass, he is shooting 59% at the rim, which is poor for a center after hitting 60% last year. The big difference was that the playmaker didn’t take care of the ball. 16 games into the season, Nurkic is assisting on just 7.8% of the Suns’ baskets when he’s on the court, down from 19.9 AST% last year. The sales ratio also increased from 19.1% to 21.5%. According to Stathead, there hasn’t been an AST percentage below 10% and a TOV percentage above 20% since Kendrick Perkins in the 2013-14 season.

This momentum will increase the longer Nurkic is so inconsistent on the floor or if Ighodaro plays at this level. The added momentum and speed that Ighodaro brings to the position makes a big difference, as evidenced by the Suns’ last two wins.

Phoenix was eliminated from the NBA Cup despite posting a similar points differential (+30) to last year’s (+34), when the Suns entered the group with the same 3-1 record with a wild card spot. That goes to the Dallas Mavericks, who went on a 13-0 run late in the fourth quarter, recovered to beat the Memphis Grizzlies 3-1 and +46 points ahead. That was heavily impacted by Dallas’ 41-point win over the New Orleans Pelicans.

The Suns now have a home game and an away game on their schedule on either December 12th or 13th and December 15th or 16th.

Follow @KellanOlson