However it Happens, Suns Confident for Playoff Push

PHOENIX – The Phoenix Suns are set to play some sort of postseason basketball once the regular season concludes, though they're still jockeying for position within the Western Conference standings.

With just four games remaining, the Suns are hanging on to hope as thin as a thread to leapfrog themselves into the West's top six and avoid the play-in tournament entirely.

Phoenix currently trails the Minnesota Timberwolves by three games as the seventh seed. The Suns have the head-to-head tiebreaker between the two. However, a loss by Phoenix combined with a win by Minnesota would ensure the Suns remain in the play-in tournament.

ESPN's basketball index gives the Suns a 0.8% chance to make the top six.

Whatever the odds are, and whatever the actual bracket looks like for the Suns, they insist they'll be ready.

"It took the games that we lost before, paying attention to the details and the small things. But this group stayed together. We're locked in and clicking at the right time. We're going to be ready for a playoff push," Suns guard Jordan Goodwin said after the team's win against Chicago (h/t Suns.com).

Phoenix is highly expected to have home court advantage in the play-in tournament with the Los Angeles Clippers and Portland Trail Blazers each three games back from the Suns. The Golden State Warriors round out the West's bottom four postseason seeds.

An interesting move was made into the starting lineup by head coach Jordan Ott on Sunday when Goodwin was inserted into Collin Gillespie's place.

Ott, speaking with reporters after the game, says that could be a postseason wrinkle.

"Just trying to balance out some of the groups. We love how that second unit played earlier in the season. That was part of it. Just trying to balance it all out," Ott said (h/t Duane Rankin).

"Now with three pretty high usage players in the starting unit (Devin Booker, Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks), just changes some of the dynamics on the offensive end with the second unit. We're going to try to find it, but we do need at some point to set and go. I think that's kind of where we're at. We've got to get ready for the play-in, got to get ready for the playoffs. That was kind of the decision going into that."

Ott also says Phoenix's minutes allocation on Sunday (using a nine-man rotation) was also intentional to prepare the Suns for the postseason.

While we're still figuring out the details of Phoenix's postseason, they insist they'll be ready nonetheless.