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Jordan Ott starts Oso Ighodaro at center as the Suns snap a four-game skid with 14 steals in a 117-104 win over the Magic
Jordan Ott started Oso Ighodaro at center for the first time this season, and the Phoenix Suns forced 25 turnovers with 14 steals in a 117-104 win over the Orlando Magic that ended a four-game skid.
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Jordan Ott started Oso Ighodaro at center for the first time this season, and the Phoenix Suns answered a four-game skid with a 117-104 win over the Orlando Magic on Thursday night at Mortgage Matchup Center. Phoenix forced 25 turnovers, recorded 14 steals and turned those mistakes into 36 points. Devin Booker scored 30 with eight assists, and Ott said afterward the lineup tweak was about finding “48 minutes of great center play.”
Why Ott flipped the center start
Khaman Maluach had opened every game at center while Mark Williams recovers from left shoulder surgery. Against Orlando, Ighodaro got the first-unit nod. Ott framed it as a change-up, not a permanent demotion, and he said both bigs handled the night well.
“Just think a little bit of a change up. Overall, it’s all the same. It’s like 48 minutes of great center play,” Ott said. “Just making an adjustment, just to change things up, just to try to figure out how we get 48 minutes of great center play. And I thought both of them handled it well.”
Ighodaro finished with two points, five rebounds and one assist in 24 minutes with five fouls. Maluach scored eight with six rebounds and two steals off the bench. Ighodaro said he and Maluach had expected to share starts at times: “Khaman and I knew we were going to start at times.” He also said he did not feel like he played his best, “but grateful it happened in a win for sure.”
Booker on Ighodaro’s screens
Booker went for 30 points on 4-of-8 from three with eight assists and three steals. He credited Ighodaro’s screening angles for early open looks that unlocked the rest of the night.
“Shout out Oso. Great screening angles. Forcing the team to go over,” Booker said. “I think I got two early 3s to start. Then that just opens everything up the rest of the way. The ability to find people on the backside and get open 3s in that way.”
He called the win the closest the Suns have come to putting a full game together after losing “every way possible” — blowouts, blown leads and late collapses — through the first six games. “Tonight was the closest, I’d say, we put a full 48 minutes together. Something to build on, something to learn from.”
Fourteen steals and a step on defense
Phoenix entered the night with one of the league’s worst defensive starts and had given up 132 points to Portland a night earlier. Against Orlando the Suns held the Magic to a season-low 104 points against them, with Dillon Brooks scoring 24, Miles Bridges posting 18 points and a season-high 13 rebounds with five assists, and Luke Kennard adding 12 off the bench.
“Our activity was in a good place. Fourteen steals,” Ott said. “It comes always down to how do you guard their drives? This is an elite driving team… I thought we were able to contain the ball much better, and keep them out of our paint, which then keeps you out of closeouts, which then hopefully puts you in a better spot to defensive rebound.”
He still wanted cleaner work on the glass after Wendell Carter Jr. scored 27 on 10-of-12 shooting, but called the night “a step in the right direction.” On rebounding, Ott praised Bridges: “He has a physicality that he brings. He has a fearlessness up in the air to go grab it with two hands. We’re going to need every piece of everyone to rebound.”
Koa Peat stays on the cusp
Before tip-off Ott said rookie forward Koa Peat was “on the cusp” of the rotation after only garbage-time minutes in his first three appearances. Peat checked in briefly late in the third quarter Thursday. Ott’s pregame message was that the prototype — drive, process, defend the drive — already shows up.
“He’s right there on the tip,” Ott said. “He keeps working, he’ll get his opportunity and we have full faith that that’s what’s coming.”
What it means for a 2-5 Suns team
Phoenix is 2-5 after snapping the skid on the second night of a back-to-back. Jordan Goodwin (right calf soreness) and Rasheer Fleming (left ankle sprain) both missed a second straight game and remain day-to-day. The Suns host the Houston Rockets on Saturday, then San Antonio on Sunday, an early-homestand stretch Ott said should help communication and routines for a roster still learning itself.
“You can talk process, process, process… but you do want a result. The goal is to win the game,” Ott said. Thursday finally delivered one — with a new starter at center and the first defensive night that looked like the group Phoenix wants to be.
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