Phoenix Suns make bravest call yet to save their season

A season of up and down results continued for the Phoenix Suns on Thursday, as they got back to winning ways in front of their home crowd with a 123-115 victory over the Atlanta Hawks. A win that sees them still sitting below .500 at 17-19, but just about keeping pace with the lower rung of the playoff chasing pack.

If you're an overly pessimistic fan then this win doesn't even matter, the Suns are nowhere near as good as the Oklahoma City Thunder or Cleveland Cavaliers for example, so we might as well wind up the season now. As dreary as this campaign has been - and it has tested the patience of The Valley - there is still time to get back to winning ways yet.

Handing center Jusuf Nurkic a DNP certainly helped.

In what was a surprise to many Nurkic - despite being back from a three-game suspension and having appeared in the previous loss to the Charlotte Hornets - was not used by head coach Mike Budenholzer in this one. Instead it was left up to Mason Plumlee and Oso Ighodaro to pick up the slack, and both performed well. Much like they have all season.

Plumlee at 34-years-old shouldn't be expected to play starter's minutes - only he hasn't because despite getting the nod in the last two games - Ighodaro has seen more court time in each contest. Asking a rookie to be the solution to the franchise's problems isn't the answer either, but when you combine the two the Suns are able to get through a game well enough.

It's not like the Hawks didn't have physical bigs themselves to mix it up in there, with veteran Clint Capela and the underrated Onyeka Okongwu a tough assignment if you're not ready for a battle. The Hawks aren't an elite team in the Eastern Conference - but as they have shown on many occasions so far this season - on their night they can give anybody a game.

Which made benching Nurkic when the Suns did a surprise. As mentioned in the above video during post-game media availability, Nurkic not playing wasn't down to matchups or anything else. It was just a case of the coaching staff deciding that playing Plumlee and Ighodaro instead was the right choice, and it paid off.

Nurkic not being out there isn't the only reason the Suns won this one, with Bradley Beal pouring in 25 points off the bench for the second time in three games. But there's no doubt that the combination of no Nurkic, plus Beal playing more with the second unit brought a lot more cohesiveness to what we saw on the court.

The Bosnian has been unplayable at times this season - so the Suns decided to go ahead and do just that - not play him. This tougher stance on both Nurkic and Beal shows a shift in approach in the last week, with the organization seemingly no longer going to just pretend everything is alright in Phoenix. Whether Beal likes it or not, he's now coming off the bench.

Whether that's a ploy to get him to waive his no-trade clause or not, the returns on the court have already been promising. In Nurkic's case it now seems to be a case of the team will play him when they want to, and they'll also have him sit out games if they think it will help them win. Which we all know that it will, and this may also prove once and for all Nurkic has absolutely zero trade value.

Something had to change - and on an unassuming night in January with their season on the brink - the Suns finally went ahead and did it. Beal off the bench was step one, but sitting Nurkic altogether was the most obvious solution to get back on track. If the Suns keep winning while he's not out there, expect those DNPs to pile up. Finally, some real decisions being made in The Valley.