Marcin Gortat and the Suns didn't show up on Tuesday, and they'll miss the playoffs because of it. (AP Photo/Jim Urquhart).

That’s it, that’s all folks.

Despite an improbable run to turn around what was once a 12-19 season, the Phoenix Suns’ playoff hopes are officially squashed after they fell to the Utah Jazz 100-88 in Salt Lake City on Tuesday night.

Thanks to a trio of monster double-doubles from Paul Milsap (26-15), Al Jefferson (18-16) and Derrick Favors (13-11 and five blocks) combined with a two-point performance from Marcin Gortat and little offensive production elsewhere, the Suns will miss the playoffs for consecutive seasons for the first time since 1988.

Their season-long climb from the basement of the Western Conference into the playoffs race fell two games short, leaving the Suns with nothing but a late lottery pick, a handful of expiring contracts, little young talent, an organization lacking direction, and a two-time MVP set to explore the free agent market.

Excited for the future of Phoenix Suns basketball right about now?

The Suns had a chance put that inevitably grim future on hold for at least four playoff games with a win against the Jazz, but all of the problems they entered the season with came out in the biggest game of the year.

With Gortat rendered ineffective and the Suns sorely missing Channing Frye and Grant Hill, the Suns had no go-to-scorer to extend the 76-74 lead that Michael Redd gave them with 10:14 to go in the game. From that point on Phoenix missed 12 of its last 17 shots, with three of the makes coming with under a minute left and the game in hand.

The Suns had no answer for the Jazz bigs as Utah’s three-headed monster of Milsap, Jefferson and Favors accounted for 57 percent of the team’s points and 75 percent of its rebounds. And Phoenix once again struggled taking care of the ball as the Jazz turned 15 Suns turnovers into 19 points and scored 24 fast-break points to boot.

Tuesday’s game was a microcosm of the Suns’ season. This once-random collection of everything from NBA journeymen to former lottery picks couldn’t come together with their season hanging in the balance, and their post-All-Star break resurrection was wasted.

But although Suns fans everywhere are mired in disappointment, the mere fact that this game meant anything is a testament to Nash and Alvin Gentry. A year ago no one would have thought that a team that plays guys like Sebastian Telfair and Michael Redd major minutes and starts players like Shannon Brown at shooting guard would even have a shot at the playoffs.

This roster has no business being mentioned with the best eight teams in the Western Conference. But through sheer chemistry and the direction of Nash and Gentry they came together to give themselves a chance. Even without Frye or Hill on the road against a hungry Jazz team, the Suns made it close early in the fourth. This team greatly overachieved, and there’s value in that.

“No one gave us a chance when we were 12-19 and really didn’t have any answers. It could have went the other way,” Nash said after the game. “I’m really proud of the coaches and the team. We hung in there and found a way to make it work together and gave ourselves a shot.”

But despite the moral victories and feel-good storylines surrounding the Suns’ comeback, the reality is they will miss the playoffs and face an offseason full of uncertainty. To play off the popular phrase, they can’t call it a comeback and not even Robert Saver, Lon Babby and Lance Blanks know what this team will look like next season.

Nash has made it clear he’ll test the free agent market. His decision will shape the future of the franchise for the next five years plus. Phoenix will either bring him back and build for one final run, or search for a new face of the franchise and move in a new direction.

All of that will come to light eventually, but for now, Tuesday night’s loss expedites the sobering reality of what the Suns have to work with moving forward.

Nash may never be in purple and orange again. Arguably their best piece, Gortat, just proved he may not be an All-Star caliber player without Nash and Frye opening up the pick and roll for him.

Then there’s questions like, is Markieff Morris really a starting power forward of the future? Is there a reason to try and re-sign Robin Lopez? Is the free agent market good enough to try and build around Nash?

All year the Suns had one last potential Nash-led playoff push to lean on. They could focus on winning games this year and sneaking into the playoffs, setting the stage for another Suns-Spurs rivalry series.

Now that’s out of the window and it’s time to face the music. The dreaded crossroads is here and Phoenix Suns basketball is set to go through the spin cycle with no concept of what type of team will come out.

And 1

• Gortat on his performance: “I am going to take the blame for that. I should finish stronger just played smarter and make the right decision. I was just rushing everything. My teammates were open on the wing I should have kicked it to the wing make sure they got the shot.”
• Gentry on the game: ”We just got to play better. In a game like this you’ve just got to play better. We kept hanging around and then we got it to 73-74 and we had several opportunities to go ahead. We just didn’t play very good tonight. You can’t afford to not play well in a game like this. You’ve got to give them credit. At the end of the game, I thought Al stepped up and Paul played well. They did a good job overall on our screen and rolls tonight I thought. They kind of took Marcin Gortat out of the game.”

Suns

Jazz

PHOENIX — Throughout the Suns’ wild ride to the precipice of a playoff berth, head coach Alvin Gentry has insisted he does not believe in “must-win” games because what do you tell your team if you lose?

“So if it’s a must-win situation today and we lose, do we not go to Utah and play?” Gentry asked before the Suns did indeed lose to the Nuggets on Saturday. “Or should we not play San Antonio the last game? Because if you say it’s a must-win situation, then you’re pretty much saying if you don’t win the season is over.”

Well, the season has finally reached the point where Gentry has no choice but to label tonight’s showdown in Utah as a “must-win” game because if the Suns don’t win they will be eliminated from playoff contention. If they win tonight they will either need to beat the Spurs on Wednesday or have Utah lose to the Blazers on Thursday to reach the playoffs.

And thus after Monday’s practice, the Suns’ head coach finally relented.

“We’re officially in a must-win situation,” Gentry said. “We have to go with the must-win thing now. But we are. Tomorrow night, if we don’t win our season is over. We have to go there with the intentions that we know that this is the seventh game of the championship series.”

Few thought the Suns would be in this position when the season began and hardly anybody could have predicted this when the Suns limped into the All-Star break sporting a 14-20 record. Now they are two wins away from becoming the first Western Conference team since the 1996-97 Suns (who were 17-31 at the break) to earn a playoff berth after being at least six games below .500 at All-Star time.

The Suns have done it with — what else? — offense, as their offensive rating since the break (108.0) ranks tied for second with the Nuggets after Phoenix played a mediocre offensive first half, according to the NBA’s stats tool.

In the past month their bench, a major liability at the start of the season, has really gelled. With Sebastian Telfair leading the show and Michael Redd transforming back into a go-to scorer, this unit has become a strength. In 13 April games, the Suns’ core bench unit of Bassy-Redd-Childress-Morris-Lopez has outscored teams by 23.3 points per 100 possessions in 111 minutes.

The bench played particularly well April 4 in Utah when the Suns eked out a 107-105 win as nearly the entire bench produced a double-digit positive +/- and all the starters were in the negatives although it did take some Steve Nash heroics down the stretch to pull out the victory. The Suns also used a hot-shooting night to defeat the Jazz 120-111 on March 14 in Phoenix, which is why they have already clinched the tiebreaker.

However, Gentry cautioned, “It doesn’t really matter what’s happened in the past. We still got to beat this Utah team that’s been really good at home. I think our guys feel confident that we can go put ourselves in a good enough position to win.”

The big unknown heading into this game remains the status of injured forwards Channing Frye and Grant Hill, who are both currently questionable. Frye did not fly with the team on Monday so he could witness the birth of his second child, Margaux Lauren, but Paul Coro reported he is expected to join the team in Utah today. Hill said he feels “as optimistic as [he's] felt in 10 days,” according to Coro.

If Frye doesn’t go, Gentry will have quite a decision on his hands about whether to start Markieff Morris or Hakim Warrick in his spot. Morris would seem to be a better matchup against Utah’s burly front line, but it might not be smart to break up the bench mob that has played so well.

Over the course of the season, the Suns have played the Nash-Brown-Dudley-Morris-Gortat lineup for 57 minutes over 23 games and it has outscored teams by 38.1 points per 100 possessions. Warrick has played 19 minutes over four games with the other non-Hill starters, which is way too small of a sample size to determine anything, but the Suns got clobbered by a net rating of 26.

Therefore, it probably makes sense to start Morris and potentially play him a few minutes with the bench as well.

It’s quite the spot for the Suns’ rookie as it’s not often that elimination games games occur at the end of the regular season in which two teams battling for the same playoff spot face off in one of the season’s final games.

For the Suns, it’s finally time to win or go home.

“It’s a great opportunity,” Nash said. “We control our own destiny.”

Added Jared Dudley, “May the best team win.”

UPDATE: Hill to play, Frye to sit

The Arizona Republic reported that Hill will play tonight against the Jazz but Frye will sit out. Hill will come off the bench, and Morris will start in Frye’s place.

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If the Suns happen to make the playoffs, Austin Link from TeamRankings.com sees them as a “potential giant killer” due to Marcin Gortat and their team age:

“If Phoenix manages to make the playoffs, history is on its side. The Suns’ age and fast pace are harbingers of postseason success. So is the emergence of Marcin Gortat as one of the best all-around centers in the game. With the possible exception of one year with Shaq, Steve Nash has never had a true center of Gortat’s quality.

All told the Suns probably don’t have the talent to do much damage in the playoffs — if they even make it. They’ll be well overmatched talentwise if they make it to the first round. However, with a little Nash magic and Gortat manning the paint, an early upset is not out of the question.”

Add that all up and the Suns are expected to be 1.15 points better in the playoffs if they make it, the second-biggest improvement over the regular season in the West behind only the Lakers. Unfortunately for Phoenix, even with that uptick in no way would the Suns be expected to pull off a first-round upset. …

Paul Coro discovered why Cedric Ceballos abruptly left his position as the Suns’ emcee at home games in an interview published on Saturday:

“It’s been 10 years since I created that role. My whole objective was to try to get in with the organization, either on the basketball side or on the broadcasting side on the radio and TV. Those are my passions. After 10 years of asking (former CEO) Rick Welts to do something and not even asking for a salary increase, I couldn’t keep asking why. In most corporations, after 10 years, you move up. They seemed like they weren’t worried about my well-being or future. I told them at some point people are going to get tired of me yelling at them. I could’ve been 10 years into something else.” …

The Suns are hosting a game watch party in US Airways Center for tonight’s contest that will be emceed by Kevin Ray and Tom Chambers. Fans can shoot around on the court from 6-7 p.m. and then enjoy the game on the main scoreboard. Admission is free. …

John Hollinger on tonight’s “first game of the playoffs”: “Phoenix’s one shot is zone defense. According to Synergy, Utah ranks 29th in points per play against zones, and the Suns have been a fairly common user of zone defenses this season.”

Kevin Zimmerman contributed reporting.

Statistical support provided by NBA.com.

You know, because when the Suns (33-31) face the Jazz (34-30) in Salt Lake City at 7:30 MST tonight, Utah is in the same cockpit. Heck, you could even call the Phoenix the co-pilot in this one.

In the end, it’s who exerts control of the game who will find themselves in sound position to face the No. 1 seed San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs.

Here’s what the Suns are facing in EnergySolutions Arena, one of the more rowdy crowds in the NBA and the home to a Jazz team that’s 23-8 while playing there.

The lowdown

Utah Jazz

Points per game: 99.7 (fourth in the NBA)

Rebounding: 43.9 (fifth in the NBA)

Opponent points per game: 99.3 (24th in the NBA)

Season series: Phoenix holds a 2-0 record with wins of 120-111 and 107-105

On March 14, the Suns survived 64 Utah paint points but needed Marcin Gortat (25), Channing Frye (26, a season high) and Jared Dudley (21) to score in the 20s to top the Jazz at home. In Utah on April 4, Phoenix led a balanced attack of seven double-digit scorers and needed 19 bench points from Michael Redd to dispatch the Jazz, who were without point guard Devin Harris.

While Gentry and crew won’t take their past history too far — the Suns have won the last seven games in the series — Dudley acknowledged it helps with confidence.

“We’ve won there last year, won there this year,” he said. “For a confidence feeling, we definitely know we’re capable.”

What’s the beef?

The Jazz offense begins and ends with its men up front.

Center Al Jefferson was named the Western Conference Player of the Week on Monday after he averaged 20 points and 15.3 rebounds per game in the prior seven days. Jefferson’s wingman, Paul Millsap, will start at the power forward slot, but he’s also been sliding to the three spot to play alongside youngster Derrick Favors and the bench unit.

While Gortat and Frye have matched the Jazz’s interior players’ offensive production in two games this season, the potential absence of Frye to a subluxed right shoulder combined with Favors’ bench presence gives Utah a sharper advantage in tonight’s game.

If Frye can’t go, the Jazz will have more reason to keep two bigs in the paint on the defensive end. Even so, they have been keying on fixing their pick-and-roll defense as to avoid being burned by stretch fours like Frye.

“Yeah, we’re changing up a little on how we want to guard things,” Gordon Hayward told the Salt Lake Tribune. “We’ve done it more towards who we’re playing instead of ‘This is what we always do.’ I think it’s helped out a little bit, especially when you go up against 4s who can stretch the floor. Teams like that are really difficult to guard, because you’ve got four guys who can basically shoot 3s and a guy rolling down the middle.”

Don’t forget the guards

While it’s the Utah frontline that might get the headlines, make no mistake about how good Devin Harris has been. The often-banged-up point guard gave the Suns a break by missing the two squads’ last meeting, but he’s averaged 19 points and six assists per game in the nine games since.

“Everyone’s got to remember that when he was with Dallas, he was a pretty doggone good player,” Gentry said Monday. “People even talked about him being an All-Star in that situation. I think it’s a matter of being healthy.”

Based on Harris’ comments to the Salt Lake Tribune about how to stop Nash — you can’t — his strategy is to be aggressive and make Nash work on the defensive end. Josh Howard also told the Tribune this interesting tidbit about defending a Nash-led offense.

“The most success I ever had as far as stopping them was letting two guys in the pick-and-roll deal with it and not letting other guys beat you,” Howard said. “Nash is a great player. But you don’t want him to have 28 points and 20 assists. If we can cut down one of the things, I think our chances of winning are a whole lot better.”

Harris has a solid backup in Jamaal Tinsley, and in the starting lineup runs alongside Gordon Hayward, the second-year pro who Gentry said might be the key player for the Jazz.

Who’s in, who’s out?

Backup point guard Earl Watson and forward C.J. Miles won’t play due to injury, while former Sun Raja Bell and wing Josh Howard went through a full practice on Monday and could return to the Utah lineup against Phoenix, according to the Deseret News. Both are rehabbing from knee problems.

The Suns were supposed to be trending down behind an aging star and a crew of role players and the Jazz were supposed to be in their first official rebuilding year after trading star point guard Deron Williams last season.

Yet here both teams are, duking it out tonight in a game that will likely decide a playoff berth (well,  except for that pesky issue of Phoenix needing to beat San Antonio, too).

To get some an inside perspective on the Jazz and tonight’s showdown, I traded emails with Clint Peterson from The Utah Jazz Blog. I answered some questions for him here.

Why are the Jazz so much better at home than on the road? Every year they seem to be two different teams depending on the venue. 

With only one season of the last five over .500 on the road that is a perplexing query. You might say it was experience except for that. With one of the notoriously best home courts in the NBA with a supportive, raucous crowd, the disparity between home and road may be striking to the players. Maybe they simply lack the mental fortitude, a trait older, successful teams acquire.

What’s the biggest reason Utah is ahead of schedule this season competing for a playoff spot? 

They’re really close, they have each others backs so they want to win for each other, make that extra pass, bring that help defense. Seasoned vet Earl Watson said this group of guys is closer than any locker room he’s ever been in and Al Jefferson said recently that they’d “die for each other.”

The Suns have already beaten the Jazz twice this season. What must the Jazz do differently tonight to prevent the series sweep? 

Obviously, minimize how the pick-n-roll happens, starting on the perimeter. If you let an opposing ball handler of Nash’s quality dictate where the play goes you’ve already lost half the battle. And they have to put the effort in early, not wait til late like they did against the Orlando Magic the other night, when they buckled down and pulled away late. On the offensive end they need to continue to hit perimeter shots, of late led by Devin Harris who is shooting a career high from 3 this year. In the first two contests with Phoenix the Jazz hit 8 of 22.

Who are the players on Phoenix most suited to making you sweat in this most important, playoff-esque atmosphere and why?

Should the Jazz find themselves able to keep Nash and Gortat from dominating the paint, the player that seems to do the most damage keeping the defense honest was Channing Frye. If he’s not in there I’d expect Michael Redd and Jared Dudley to attempt to open up the lanes and the Suns’ offense in the paint for the former pair to butter their bread. Phoenix hit on 44 percent of 50 3-point field goals in the first two meetings.

It also hasn’t gone unnoticed that Alvin Gentry has found recent success rolling out a peaking-at-the-right-time Sebastian Telfair in the backcourt with Nash.

What players, doing what, are key to putting the Jazz over the top tonight? 

It starts with Al Jefferson directing the defense, a new trick this “old dog” added to his bag a few weeks ago. That communication is key to helping their perimeter defenders effectively counter a determined offense by pushing them away from where they’re trying to be to set up a play. Failing to stave off the PnR with the starters Ty Corbin’s found a lengthy, extremely successful spark lineup that includes Gordon Hayward at the 2, Paul Millsap at the 3, Derrick Favors at the 4, and Jefferson as a capable last line of defense when given the tenacious help the three in front of him have given.

And gotta knock back those treys.

Steve Nash drilled the go-ahead bucket on a broken play to lead the Suns to a vital 107-105 victory over the Utah Jazz. (AP Photo/Jim Urquhart)

Ever since Amare Stoudemire left town, the Suns have lacked a go-to scorer, the kind of player teams rely on to get a bucket in crunch time when they need it most.

Well, apparently Steve Nash has added that responsibility to his already lengthy job description after drilling two go-ahead baskets in the final 14 seconds to lead Phoenix to a critical 107-105 victory over the Utah Jazz that vaulted the Suns past Utah into ninth place in the West, just a game behind Denver and Houston for the final two playoff spots in the West.

“You get the ball in his hands and you know he is going to get something good for his team,” Jazz head coach Tyrone Corbin told reporters. “He just gives you that confidence. He is who he is. He is a great player and he made great plays for them down the stretch. He made two big buckets to get them a win.”

With the game knotted up at 103 with 28 seconds remaining, Nash decided to call his own number instead of setting up his teammates as he often does a game after drilling two clutch jumpers in Sacramento to put the Suns up nine and essentially put the game away with 4:39 remaining.

Although he is not known for taking and making a lot of crunch time shots as he rarely goes into hero ball mode like so many other superstars, Nash got the lead-footed Al Jefferson to switch onto him on a pick and roll, continued to drive left and then executed a hard jump stop left to create space for a beautiful 17-foot jumper that did not hit the rim.

After Paul Millsap drove past Frye and found an open Jefferson under the rim for the tying basket, the Suns called Michael Redd’s number as the veteran had been hot tonight. Redd drove baseline but when he was double teamed he kicked it back out to Nash with just under five seconds remaining as the Utah defense scrambled to bottle Two Time up.

That did not happen as Nash somehow skirted past two defenders to take an off-balanced runner 17 feet from the hoop, which of course found the bottom of the net as well with 1.7 seconds remaining. Nash sauntered off the court with the look of a cold-blooded assassin on his face as teammates rushed to congratulate him.

“We ran a play to get Channing a shot and then Michael a shot and neither of them got it,” Nash said. “The ball kind of fumbled to me. I was able to get Millsap, I think, off his feet and I was able to lean in and just make one. I knew we didn’t have a ton of time, but I didn’t have to rush. I saw Gortat open under the basket, but I didn’t want to mess around with it.”

The Suns then held their breath as C.J. Miles hoisted a potential game-winning 3 from the corner that Millsap tipped it in yet the Suns were finally able to exhale and celebrate as the ball was clearly in his hands when the buzzer went off.

Phoenix seemed to have this game won when Frye banked in an off balanced 26-foot fadeaway to beat the shot clock buzzer and put the Suns up 103-98 with 1:06 remaining.

Yet the Jazz came right back as they had all game with a quick five points capped by a Jefferson jump shot and highlighted by Millsap picking Nash’s pocket.

The final flurry mirrored a chaotic game that saw every quarter played within two points with some big runs in between (the Suns led by nine in the second quarter and 10 midway through the fourth but the Jazz fought back every time).

The Suns’ bench was always in the middle of their runs as each reserve posted a positive +/- and each starter a negative one. Every backup played well tonight, and I cannot remember too many times that has happened this year.

Redd took over the lead scoring role off the pine with 19 points on 8-for-17 shooting a night after chipping in 16 in Sacramento. He was not bashful and his hot scoring night helped the Suns open up leads with Robin Lopez locking down the paint defensively and grabbing seven boards in 18 minutes.

Markieff Morris seemed to be everywhere in the first half when he scored all 11 of his points and provided a bundle of activity and Sebastian Telfair’s seven-point, two-assist fourth quarter put Phoenix in position to benefit from Nash’s heroics.

“It was huge,” Redd said of Phoenix’s bench play. “Again, it was a team win and we just try to pick up the slack with Grant not around. We just try to elevate our games. It was a great win, we just need to keep doing it.”

Redd’s bench scoring is so vital, especially with Shannon Brown in the starting lineup, because there are not many natural scorers in that reserve unit. When Redd can be that main second unit guy and with the rest of the bench players such solid defenders, all of a sudden you get a night like tonight when the bench won the Suns a critical road game.

To Gentry, the playoffs have already begun for Phoenix, but a win like this puts the Suns much closer to that goal.

The victory clinched the season series over the Jazz with one game still remaining on the penultimate night of the season in Utah. With the Suns now a half game ahead of the Jazz, that tiebreaker very well may come in play.

Phoenix now sits all alone in ninth place in the West and with the Nuggets inexplicably dropping a game in New Orleans tonight, the Suns trail both Houston and Denver by a mere one game for a playoff spot. They will face the Nuggets twice more and the Rockets once before the season ends, so those playoff spots are very much up for grabs for a Suns team that moved two games over .500 tonight for the first time all season.

“I think to be over .500 right now we’ve overachieved,” Nash said. “We are gaining confidence and we believe that we can keep winning. The spirit is good. Guys are sticking together and playing hard. When we were 12-19 it could have gone the other way. Obviously we hung together. The coaches have been phenomenal. We’ve stuck with it.

“We played hard and persevered and we are being rewarded for fighting hard.”

And 1

Grant Hill will represent the professional game as one of three winners of “The Mannie Jackson – Basketball’s Human Spirit Award.” He will be recognized on Sept. 6 during a lead up to the Basketball Hall of Fame ceremonies in Springfield, Mass.

According to a release, award winners must embrace “the core values of the game through hard work, dedication, and resilience; striving to continuously improve the community they serve, and making an ongoing commitment to others.  Beyond the game, award winners must reflect the values of Mannie Jackson’s life-long mission to overcome obstacles and challenge the status quo, while taking responsibility for personal actions and seeking the highest standard of excellence.”

Chauncey Billups and Samuel Dalembert have previously won the award. UConn head coach Jim Calhoun and Dr. Richard Lapchick, the Institute for Diversity and Ethics In Sport founder and director, will be honored this year with Hill as well.

“It’s a tremendous honor because of the award and what it stands for,” Hill told The Arizona Republic.

Suns

Jazz

As much talk as the Phoenix Suns have spouted about making the playoffs, their words have done little to chisel themselves out of the 10th spot in the Western Conference rankings.

That’s not to say they haven’t improved and worked their way into position to do just that. Their intentions have just taken a while to come to fruition. Tonight’s game against the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City is the first opportunity to make a significant, positive move in the standings.

The Jazz (28-26) sit a half game in front of Phoenix (27-26), and a victory will amount to moving a spot outside of the playoffs, just behind the 29-25 Houston Rockets. And it goes without saying that a loss would seriously jeopardize Phoenix’s playoffs hopes.

Considering this season’s one-game history between the Jazz and the Suns, this game will be a good one. In their last meeting on March 14, Phoenix pulled out a gutty 120-111 victory in US Airways Center, surviving a 20-3 run and the bruising interior play of Al Jefferson, Paul Millsap and Derrick Favors, who ran as an intimidating and over-sized unit last night for coach Ty Corbin.

Then, the Suns needed 51 combined points from Marcin Gortat and Channing Frye, not to mention 21 from Jared Dudley, to ensure the win.

Throwing and landing multiple punches on the Suns wasn’t enough for Utah, and the Suns’ fighting back was a testament to how mentally strong the team really is, a trait that Phoenix showed again last night, when they survived a blown 17-point lead against the Kings to grasp victory in crunch time.

But for the Jazz?

In the grand scheme of things, the Suns’ win back in March was a Utah loss, and it’s likely the Jazz remember the battle well. Utah ran off six straight victories following their loss in Phoenix.

Coming into tonight, however, the Jazz have lost four of six.

All that does is set up a golden opportunity for the fourth-best rebounding team in the NBA to rebound against a team they know they can score against. If DeMarcus Cousins’ career-high 41 points last night against the Suns was any indication, Jefferson, Millsap and Favors have every reason to believe they’ll find the same success against Phoenix as they did in the teams’ first meeting this season.

Then again, there’s not much need for extra motivation on either teams’ end.

They’re both eying the playoffs, and they know the gravity of this game.

Three keys for Phoenix

Find Frye’s confidence. The Suns’ forward has been off of late, shooting just 39.8 percent from the floor in the past eight games. In March against the likes of Millsap, he proved to be a mismatch, pouring in a season-high 26 points. If Phoenix wants to go toe-to-toe with the interior-oriented Jazz, then finding Frye working around the three-point arc is a good way to negate the damage done on the inside. If not, he’ll have to find some way to silence Millsap with his defense. The guess here is the first choice might be the more doable option.

Beware of Tinsley. I must have hopped into a time machine, because with starting point guard Devin Harris quite questionable for tonight’s game, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, grizzled veteran point Jamaal Tinsley will likely be running the second unit. And what he did against Phoenix in March was proof that, well, maybe it’s Tinsley who traveled back in time. In that one, he finished out the game to collect a box score of 11 points and eight assists, nearly orchestrating the Jazz to a victory.

Run with the bench. Lately, Phoenix’s bench unit has been struggling to score. So too has Utah’s second unit despite Ty Corbin similarly going 10 or 11 players deep. The Suns must find a way to force turnovers against a team that traditionally takes good care of the ball. At the very least, they must contest shots, grab the rebound and look to push the pace. Considering the potential points the Jazz can put up against the Suns’ starters, the Phoenix bench needs to pull a little more weight.

And 1

Just an FYI: Former Sun Raja Bell won’t be playing after getting some sort of lubrication injected into his knee. Oh, and he probably isn’t too sad about missing this game against his former team. He told the Salt Lake Tribune that playing against friend Steve Nash is a … well, read here.

Channing Frye paced the Suns with a season-high 26 points. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

PHOENIX — Alvin Gentry warned that his Phoenix Suns better be wary of the Utah Jazz and their insistence of feeding their big men in the post. He also warned of the Jazz bench catching fire.

Neither of those things are easily done, and despite Phoenix’s effort, Utah had success in both of those areas.

Nothing a little hot shooting couldn’t solve, though.

Channing Frye scored a season-high 26 points in addition to Marcin Gortat’s 25, and the Suns shot 56.4 percent from the floor in a 120-111 victory against the Jazz in US Airways Center. Steve Nash only attempted four shots, but he ended the night with 12 points, mostly from the foul stripe, and 16 assists, using the pick-and-roll to pick apart the Utah defense.

“This offense is predicated on the pick-and-roll and Steve making decisions on the pick-and-roll,” Dudley said, stating the obvious. “The difference is now, Channing isn’t always settling … he’s getting in the lane sometimes, he’s swinging it. I’m not always settling. Guys are definitely being more efficient out there.”

Dudley and Frye hit 9-of-16 from three-point range as the rest of the Suns went 0-of-3 from the land of plenty.

That white-hot shooting was necessary to combat Utah’s big men — Al Jefferson, Paul Millsap and Derrick Favors — combining for 50 points and 20 rebounds. Giving up 52.2 percent shooting to the Jazz wasn’t promising for Gentry, who didn’t necessarily put the blame on his big men.

“Where we failed a little bit is we gave up too many drives where our bigs had to step up,” Gentry said, “and now they’re dropping it off to their bigs. We just got to do a little bit better job of dribble-penetration, containing.”

Gortat and Frye scored 18 of the Suns first 22 points, and much of that came from an aggressive Gortat trying to get over the Minnesota game, one of his worst performances of the year.

“I definitely tried to come out and be aggressive from the first minute, get a lot of post-ups,” the Suns’ center said. “I know the team needs that. That was my goal.”

But taking the starting frontcourt duo off the court to inevitably catch a breather sucked the life out of the Suns.

After Phoenix gained a 19-15 lead with 4:39 to play in the first quarter, Utah went on a 20-3 run behind a bench push anchored by forward Derrick Favors, who scored 14 on the night and mostly abused Hakim Warrick, who saw playing time in front of rookie Markieff Morris.

Outscoring Phoenix 30-22 in the first quarter, a 46-33 Jazz lead with six minutes to go in the second quarter made it appear that Utah’s bench had thrown a nasty punch. Of course, giving up hot starts has been a problem for Phoenix in the past three games, but on Wednesday, it was a matter of the Suns staying calm.

“We don’t like to do that,” Frye said of his team giving up hot starts, “but we understand the game is a game of runs. We continued to believe in each other … we just tried to play good ball and tried to figure it out. I think that’s the sign of a good team.”

That amounted to an 11-0 Suns spurt of their own, and a Frye three-ball with 0.7 seconds before the halftime buzzer gave Phoenix a tie game at 53 going into the locker room.

Dudley scored 11 straight for the Suns — including three 3-pointers — in the meat of the third quarter, when Phoenix opened up a lead, and the Suns’ starting two guard ended the night with 21 points.

“When you got three, four guys in the 20s I think it’s a sign of, number one, Stevie. And we’re playing very unselfish,” Frye said. “Without Marc rollin’, I wouldn’t get those shots.”

Utah wasn’t done fighting after taking the Suns own blow to the chin.

The Jazz bench added 55 points on the evening, and despite back-up point guard Earl Watson missing most of the game after spraining his left ankle and starter Devin Harris in foul trouble, an 11-point, eight-assist effort from veteran Jamaal Tinsley had the Jazz had tied the game at 91 points with less than 10 minutes remaining.  Tinsley hit a deep, running three-pointer to end the third period and cut into a 10-point lead.

Luckily for Phoenix, the hot shooting continued and it once again pulled away from Utah by the final buzzer.

But the big picture still showed lapses in the defense that Gentry isn’t overlooking.

“Defensively, we have to get back to what we were doing,” Phoenix’s head coach said. “That is just way too many points in the paint (64). Don’t get me wrong, we love the win. But for us, we have to get back to doing a better job controlling the paint more and we had too many points off turnovers.”

Jazz

Suns

Surprise, surprise.

It’s just another team caught in the muck surrounding the bottom seeds in the Western Conference playoff race.

With the loss on Monday to the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Phoenix Suns find themselves three games back of the eighth playoff seed. In front of them are the Timberwolves, Portland Trail Blazers and the Utah Jazz, who the Suns face tonight in US Airways Center.

The Suns are tied with the Golden State Warriors at three games behind the current eighth place Houston Rockets, making the fight for that last seed as complicated as six teams.

So it’s safe to say this game has some weight to it.

The good news for Phoenix is Utah’s 5-15 record on the road, which comes in second worst in the conference. In that, we can say it’s a prime opportunity for the Suns to get back on track defensively after giving up 127 points to the Timberwolves on 56.2 percent shooting from the floor.

But as we’ve seen this season, Phoenix has been prone to give up home victories to teams with no business of stealing games in US Airways.

The Jazz could be yet another candidate to do just that. After all, their 15-6 home record is indicative that this isn’t a team severely lacking in talent.

At the core of Utah’s strength are Al Jefferson and Paul Millsap, who man the paint as the Jazz’s only double-digit scorers at 19.2 and 15.8 points per game, respectively. The duo combines for 18.4 rebounds per game and also have solid PERs of 23.5 and 23.2.

After that, the Utah roster is a matter of distributed duties.

Former All-Star point guard Devin Harris is having a sub-par season to say the least, as his output of 9.9 points and 4.5 assists per game fall below his career averages. Meanwhile, Utah has intriguing young pieces in second-year pros Gordon Hayward and Derrick Favors, who could be targets for Suns forward Grant Hill to face on the defensive end.

With a pace that ranks 18th in the league, the Jazz aren’t a team that’s likely going to explode for 110 points. The Suns had best take advantage of that to get back on track.

Three keys for Phoenix

Go to Gortat. Marcin Gortat’s performance against the Timberwolves on Monday might have been his worst of the year. He played 20 foul-plagued minutes and missed two key free throws down the stretch. You could tell he was frustrated. The guy puts a lot on himself, and there’s no doubt he’ll come out with some ferocity against the Jazz. If Steve Nash can run some pick-and-rolls with Gortat early, that’ll help his confidence for the entirety of the game.

Guard rebounding. Utah’s interior-focused team means that the Phoenix bigs will have their hands full in the paint. And considering this is one of the worst three-point shooting teams in the league at 30.6 percent from long range, Phoenix should expect long rebounds if their guards are doubling the post and running out to contest threes. The guards must do their part to rebound the ball after contesting shots and also crash the boards when the Jazz take it down low.

Swing, pump, drive. Defense aside, Phoenix’s offense against Minnesota looked sharp. The ball movement can do some damage against the Jazz if the Suns continue swinging the ball, pumping as defenders run them off the line and driving for mid-range jumpers or kicks back out for three. It’s a simple formula that will put the Suns in good postion to win if their defense finds itself.

And 1

• The Salt Lake Tribune writes on former Jazz guard and current Sun Ronnie Price playing his old team.

PHOENIX — You might not know it by his results, but Channing Frye does not believe in the hot hand theory.

Whether he’s shooting 1-for-7 and 2-for-11 as he has in the past few weeks or 12-for-16 as he did in Tuesday’s 102-101 win over the Utah Jazz, Frye always tries to shoot the same shots with the same balance and the same focus on the rim.

But after Suns assistant Igor Kokoskov challenged Frye about his shooting before Tuesday’s game, the UA product could not miss during a 7-for-7 first quarter that included five threes and resulted in 19 points, a total he had not surpassed in a game since going off for 25 on Jan. 21 in Washington.

“He was like, ‘We pay you to make some shots, so you better go out there and make some,’” Frye said of Kokoskov. “So, I was like, ‘All right.’ I just went out there and shot and just had confidence in shooting them. My teammates kept putting me in situations to succeed.”

Frye went on to score a career-high 31 points to go along with 11 rebounds for his first career 30-10 game and his fourth career 30-point game overall as well as his first as a Sun. The Suns are now 6-0 when Frye scores 20 this year and 5-0 when he puts up a double-double.

You could see Frye was locked in from the tip as his monster first helped the Suns overcome an eight-turnover opening period, and his hot shooting continued into the second half. He even scored on consecutive post-ups early in the second half when Utah switched a smaller defender onto him.

But tonight was all about the long ball for Channing, who finished with six on the game and most certainly reached “He’s on fire” status.

“He was in a great zone,” said Mickael Pietrus. “I’ve been through that before, and it’s pretty fun.”

What I liked most about his performance is he didn’t start forcing heat check jumpers. Gentry even chided his team for not getting Channing the ball more as he attempted one less shot than he did during back-to-back 6-for-17 and 5-for-17 appearances to start the month.

To me it’s a very good thing that Frye scored his 31 points on 75 percent shooting in the flow of the offense, choosing not to force anything. As Frye said afterward, he was happy to shoot when he was open, but if it’s not it’s nothing personal, he will make the right read and move the ball.

When players think they’re hot they often tend to start jacking up bad shots that ultimately cost their team, but Frye stayed within his means tonight and that led to a narrow victory.

Channing’s monster night was a welcome sign for a player whose shooting touch has left him all too often this season. He’s shooting 41.5 percent from the field (108th among qualified players and worst on the Suns) and 38.0 percent from three (55th after ranking sixth at 43.9 percent last season).

His PER is down to 11.81 from 15.09 last season, his Wins Produced numbers show him as a below average player and his adjusted plus/minus numbers have dropped from last year as well.

I recently surveyed some advanced stats writers from the Wages of Wins Network on Channing, and they basically told me those numbers don’t lie despite Gentry playing Frye 36 minutes a game since Jan. 9. Gentry likes how his ability to space the floor opens up the game for the rest of the Suns, so I’m still hesitant to accept that Frye’s playing as bad as the advanced analytics say he is.

But there’s no debating one thing about Frye, and it’s that when he gets rolling he can carry a team to victory as he did tonight.

The Suns still needed to rip off an 11-0 run after trailing by eight with seven minutes left, and once again it was Frye providing a dagger from long range to tie things up before Pietrus gave the Suns the lead for good with a triple to put them up three with 3:35 remaining.

The Suns nearly coughed up that advantage after suffering a shot-clock violation for their 19th turnover with 16.5 remaining during a possession that involved lots of standing around and not much else while the Suns nursed a one-point lead.

But Grant Hill forced a Deron Williams miss, Frye made one of two free throws, and then Marcin Gortat rotated over to defend Paul Millsap cutting to the basket for a potential game-tying layup before Millsap fumbled the ball away for a game-clinching turnover.

With the win the Suns swept the season series with the Jazz for the first time since 1982-83. That, of course, means they own the tiebreaker against Utah, who leads Phoenix by 2 1/2 games for the No. 8 seed in the West but is ahead by just one game in the loss column. The Suns are also one game out in the loss column behind Denver and two back of New Orleans and Portland.

After dropping Sunday’s heartbreaker to the lowly Kings, the Suns continued their stellar run of late, winning their seventh game in nine tries and their sixth out of seven against winning teams.

Despite how well this team is playing, the Suns have also learned during this stretch about the size of their margin for error these days, according to their captain.

“We’re the type of team that the minute we think we’ve arrived we’re going to get socked in the mouth, so we’ve got to come out every day with everything to prove and try to be the underdog,” Steve Nash said. “We’re a team that’s got to go out there and feel like we have to prove ourselves every night and earn it. If you take one little bit off the gas we get pretty mediocre pretty fast.”

With Frye drilling shots every time he touched the ball, the Suns looked far better than mediocre against Utah.

Rotational ramblings

Vince Carter did not log a second in the fourth quarter for the fourth straight game, scoring 10 points in 25 minutes of the first three.

Pietrus played the entire fourth in his place and did a fantastic job in that period, scoring eight points, grabbing four rebounds and blocking a whopping three shots while playing aggressive defense.

“Pietrus made some huge plays — rebounds, blocked shots, things like that,” Gentry said. “He was really good there.”

Added Nash, “It’s great when he makes shots, but what I love is him blocking shots, grabbing big rebounds. Tonight he was so active, you see this athleticism you don’t see every night that’s pretty impressive. He really was huge for us tonight.”

Since they both play better defense and can provide similar outside shooting to Carter, I wouldn’t mind seeing Pietrus or Jared Dudley continue to close out games.

After playing Goran Dragic for five minutes in the second quarter in his first action since missing seven games with a toe injury, Gentry went with Zabian Dowdell for five minutes in the second half.

The Suns lost eight points under Dragic’s watch and nine with Dowdell, making Nash’s plus/minus look real nice at plus 18.

Dragic scored two points and got a rebound and an assist but he turned it over twice and failed to control the game.

“It’s Goran’s first game back and I thought he was a little rusty,” Gentry said. “That’s why we have Zabian on the team, to be able to stick him in there. He’s played the last couple of games and been pretty good, so we just thought in that situation Zabian would probably be a little more stable.”

Dragic agreed with the rusty assessment and added his legs were “a little heavy,” but he had no problem with Gentry making him earn his backup point guard role back.

And 1

Nash passed Gary Payton for seventh on the NBA’s all-time assist list, just missing another 20-15 game with 20 points and 14 assists. “He was always good to me,” Nash said of Payton. “I remember my junior year in college him inviting me to work out in his backyard in Oakland, pretty cool. It was amazing to know where I was then and to pass him was like beyond my wildest dreams, and I love the guy.” … The Suns held their fifth straight opponent under 46 percent shooting, their longest such streak since Jan. 5-15, 2010. Eight of their last nine opponents have shot under 46 percent. … Frye’s 19 points in the first tied Hakim Warrick (second quarter Nov. 24 vs. Chicago) for the Suns’ individual high quarter. … The Suns grabbed just three offensive rebounds, none of which came from a big.