Inside The Suns

Suns Drop in Playoff Standings After Thunder Loss

The Phoenix Suns went from No. 5 to No. 7 in the West after losing to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Donnie Druin|
Suns Drop in Playoff Standings After Thunder Loss
Suns Drop in Playoff Standings After Thunder Loss

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Phoenix Suns

PHOENIX -- The Phoenix Suns dropped down to the No. 7 spot in the Western Conference standings after losing to the Oklahoma City Thunder last night. 

Phoenix - now sitting at 35-26 on the year - held the No. 5 spot prior to Sunday's losing effort against the Thunder, who propelled themselves to the No. 1 seed in the West. 

Of course, this is all volatile in terms of where Phoenix may end up once the postseason picture finally settles. 

With 21 games left for the Suns, here's how the West currently looks:

  1. Oklahoma City Thunder (42-18)
  2. Minnesota Timberwolves (42-19, 0.5 games back)
  3. Denver Nuggets (42-19, 0.5 games back)
  4. LA Clippers (39-20, 2.5 games back)
  5. New Orleans Pelicans (36-25, 6.5 games back)
  6. Sacramento Kings (34-25, 7.5 games back)
  7. Phoenix Suns (35-26, 7.5 games back)
  8. Dallas Mavericks (34-27, 8.5 games back)
  9. Golden State Warriors (32-28, 10 games back)
  10. Los Angeles Lakers (33-29, 10 games back)

Phoenix is in the thick of the West's middle standings, as they're just one game back from the No. 5 spot but five games removed from the No. 4 seed, which would net them homecourt advantage in the first round of postseason play.

The sledding gets no easier for Phoenix, who also has the highest strength of schedule remaining in the NBA with a combined winning percentage of .578 from their upcoming opponents. 

Bradley Beal was asked after the game if the Suns still have time left to build continuity:

“Yes and no; we got time, but we can’t keep saying we got time. We got 20 games left. It is a good amount of games to get us going and get us going right before the playoffs. I think that will be really good for us, but we do got to get rolling. We can’t keep talking about it, we can't keep coming to you guys and say, ‘We got time, we will fix it.’ We got to do it. We have our team now going into the playoffs, we got to hit this steamroller head on. We got a lot of playoff teams coming in here ready to go. It is a good challenge for us.” 

Phoenix hits the road for a Tuesday night road contest against the Denver Nuggets. 

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Donnie Druin
DONNIE DRUIN

Donnie Druin is the Publisher for Arizona Cardinals and Phoenix Suns On SI. Donnie moved to Arizona in 2012 and has been with the company since 2018. In college he won "Best Sports Column" in the state of Arizona for his section and has previously provided coverage for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona State Sun Devils. Follow Donnie on Twitter @DonnieDruin for more news, updates, analysis and more!

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