PHOENIX – Part of the schedule requires the Phoenix Suns to get off to a good start with a 116-109 win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday.

Friday’s win over the Utah Jazz began a streak of four straight games against sub-.500 clubs. After five games against some of the better teams in the West beginning Dec. 23, the Suns will play eight of their next nine games against Eastern Conference opponents and play two games with the 14-13 Atlanta Hawks only those ranked above .500. The only game with another team in the West is 5-19 Utah.

From then on, the road traveled becomes much more difficult. Since the Suns are just 14-11, they can’t afford to lose more than a few of these 13 games.

Although the Suns never really sustained a solid game to blow it up on Sunday, the third quarter’s problems immediately became apparent with Portland up 11-0 early in the quarter, fueled by two turnovers by Jusuf Nurkic and one blocked Shot attempt that could have counted for a third. Phoenix couldn’t let the game get out of hand, extending its lead back to four at the end of the quarter before an 18-6 start to the final frame pretty much put things over. Nurkic was part of this positive attempt to regain control.

Good teams will play a dozen or so games like this against inferior opponents, giving the opponent some time before easily bringing them back down to earth towards the end of the competition. Things didn’t go particularly well after the Suns played poorly at the end of their road trip, leaving them behind late in the game for the second straight game against Portland.

Devin Booker scored a solid 28 points on 7 of 14 shooting, while Kevin Durant had a rare miss with 9 of 23 and 20 points. Booker looked like himself in back-to-back wins.

At the 25-game mark, the Suns certainly have the depth in their supporting cast to make a strong run into the postseason. There continues to be great production from artists like Tyus Jones (19 points), Royce O’Neale (13) and others.

That was a big goal boom from this duo.

In Jones’ first six seasons, he scored more than 15 points in a total of 15 games, according to Stathead. That number rose to 10 in his seventh season alone, before doing so 18 times in each of the last two years. Now in his 10th year, Jones has scored at least 15 points on 10 different occasions in just 25 games.

It’s a similar rise for O’Neale. He scored more than 15 points in 16 games in his first five seasons before reaching a high of 17 points in his last two years. He came in at just under 15 on Sunday, but has played eight games in just 25 games.

“They understand that teams are going to overload me, Kev and Brad and pay for it,” Booker said of the two. “We worked on that every day in practice. We’re talking about that distance.”

These two have been shooting absolute coverage from distance lately. Over the last 10 games, O’Neale is 52.8% (37-for-70) and Jones is 54.5% (30-55).

Jones, in particular, moves on the floor like someone who has truly grasped the rhythm of this space.

“Given the seriousness that KD, Book (and) Brad generate, everyone else is getting open looks,” Jones said. “So just be ready to fire them and knock them down.”

Bradley Beal of the Suns is out due to his recent injury

Bradley Beal was sidelined for the second straight game because his right knee swelled between Thursday evening and Friday morning, before Friday’s win. Head coach Mike Budeholzer said Sunday before the game that the injury “kind of didn’t show up anywhere” but that there was no structural damage and that with a few days off through Thursday, the Suns were confident the swelling would subside and Beal would return to health.

“He works. I saw him conditioning today, so you just have to stick with it,” Booker said of Beal. “He’s a professional, he’s been at it a long time.”

Having recently passed the quarter point of the regular season, Beal now has seven separate injuries to his name. He appeared in 15 of the Suns’ 25 games.

Beal missed two games because of his right elbow, five because of a left calf injury, one because of a left ankle sprain and now two because of a right knee injury. That doesn’t include a night against Sacramento when he was in severe pain after rolling up his left knee and an ankle injury he couldn’t even remember because he was pinching his knee because of the pain, and he also hurt himself sprained his right ankle on December 5th. He was sidelined three games later with a knee injury to his leg.

Last season it was his back, right ankle (twice), a nose fracture, left Achilles tendon and right finger.

At some point, now 18 months into Beal, the Suns will have to think about changing the way Beal is used to protect him. He is under contract for two more seasons beyond this year and, barring an unforeseen twist of logic from an opposing front office, will get nowhere. Whether that means fewer minutes, fewer games or fewer practices, when does Phoenix change its mindset?

Budenholzer said that such discussions have not yet taken place with training staff. He noted that some of those injuries were bad luck for Beal, and he’s certainly right. But they happen again and again. Most NBA players deal with a variety of ailments over the course of a season, so this part isn’t irregular, but Beal’s frequency and the frequency with which he has to sit out is.

It’s not a surefire solution. Just because Beal is on the field less doesn’t necessarily mean the risk of injury is lower. However, trying something different must be on the minds of some key decision makers.

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