The Phoenix Suns may be in for a long slide starting in Mexico City

The Phoenix Suns are hanging on to a playoff spot by the skin of their teeth. With recent losses to teams they SHOULD have beaten, their position in the West has become extremely perilous.

The Phoenix Suns are in a position they have not been for a very long time: they are still in the top-eight of the Western Conference 24 games into the season.

Unfortunately though, with two recent losses to the Orlando Magic and Memphis Grizzlies, teams that they should have defeated, they are facing an outside-looking-in period if they do not pull some Christmas magic out of Santa Claus’ hat over the next six games.

Phoenix opens this very difficult stretch with a winnable game against the San Antonio Spurs in a technical home game in Mexico City. The Spurs are nowhere near the team they have been since Gregg Popovich took over as head coach in 1996 and currently sit in 12th in the Conference.

However, the Suns and Spurs are only a game-and-a-half apart in the standings, so while the game is winnable,  it is not like they are playing one of the league’s bottom-feeders.

Phoenix then flies to their real home and two days later take on the resurgent Portland Trailblazers who currently share the same record with San Antonio..

Once 5-12 and appearing to be facing a long and depressing season, the addition of Carmelo Anthony has brought the roster life, and since November 25, the Blazers are a positive 5-3.

Portland too will be coming off of a four-day break prior to the matchup with the Suns.

It would be silly to call that game a “must-win” this early in the season, however if they do lose to San Antonio, a loss to Portland will most certainly bring Phoenix to about the 12th spot in the tight Conference.

The Suns then move onto a short two-game road trip, opening at the LA Clippers – the second best team by record in the West and a team that has dropped 150 points twice in the last month – then to Oklahoma City, for a game in the always difficult Chesapeake Energy Arena.

However, they come into that little trip with reinforcements: December 17, at the LA Clippers, will mark the return of one, Deandre Ayton.

Phoenix defeated the Clippers in the third game of the regular season at home, but did so while the Clipps were still without the still recovering Paul George. L.A. has lost only two of their last 14 games, one to the NBA’s record-leading Milwaukee Bucks, and once to the Spurs, a matchup in which George played extremely  ineffectively.

While I fully expect Ayton to start from the moment he returns, and according to Monty Williams, he will start inserting Ayton into practices more fully early, he will not have had game action with his teammates since opening night, so there might be a bit of a learning curve adding him back into rotations, which could cause some early difficulty as they learn to play with each other once again.

The Thunder are currently tied with Phoenix (and the Sacramento Kings) in the Western Conference standings, but have an easier three-game slate between now and the time they face the Suns with games against Denver, Chicago, and Memphis.

Making it the second game of Ayton’s return, the Thunder might actually be the most beatable in this stretch, as the Suns will both be playing with a full roster (hopefully) for the second game in a row, and facing a tam in Oklahoma who boasts an overall lack of size.

Leading up to Christmas, the Suns play two more home games, these against the Houston Rockets and the Denver Nuggets.

Woof.

Currently the fourth and fifth in the West standings, the games will be Ayton’s first home appearances since his return.

Unfortunately, the game versus Houston may be one where he may not come too much into affect because of the Rockets’ fastbreaking and outside-shooting style, negating Ayton’s interior defense and Mike D’Antoni’s exploiting of his lack of an outside side.

The Suns have lost to the Rockets 12 straight times (including once on December 7), a streak that has tied the all-time head-to-head matchup between the two franchise’s at 107 apiece.

If that kind of a thing is important to you, it will absolutely be interesting to see if the Suns can hold off the Rockets from taking the all-time series lead for the first time since March 21, 1971.

This difficult six-game, potentially playoff altering stretch, ends, for the Phoenix Suns on December 23, versus the Denver Nuggets,

Ayton’s return could play huge in this game defensively as he and Aron Baynes will be able to tag team Nikola Jokić, while Devin Booker attempts to match his scoring bucket-for-bucket. Phoenix has already lost to the Nuggets twice this season, both without Ayton, although both very winnable games.

All Sun fans (and the team itself) can hope for is that the addition of Ayton will serve as a catalyst to finally overcome their Conference foe, at least this time, at home.

At the time of this writing, the Phoenix Suns are still holding onto the 8th seed in the Western Conference, the latest that they have held that spot since the 2014-15 regular season.

This six-game stretch beginning in Mexico City and ending against the Denver Nuggets could be the difference between strengthening their hold on the position, and falling out of the playoff picture all-together.