Was that 22-point comeback win over the Sacramento Kings a fluke, or a potential turning point in the season for the Phoenix Suns?

-Gerald Bourguet

Historic comeback win over Kings doesn't fix all of Suns' problems, but it's another step in the right direction

For about 40 of their 48 minutes against the Sacramento Kings Tuesday night, the Phoenix Suns were outplayed. On the scoreboard, they were technically outplayed for 46 minutes and 18 seconds, since the Kings held a lead for that entire duration.

But the Suns know better than most it takes a full 48 minutes to win, and their historic comeback from a 22-point deficit finally saw the NBA's worst fourth-quarter team flip the script.

"It's still crazy that we ended up finishing that game the way we did," Kevin Durant said. "We've been the worst fourth-quarter team in it felt like the history of the game, and tonight we come back with this. That's crazy how life works."

Despite a porous defense that allowed the Kings to get whatever they wanted through three quarters, despite being dominated for most of the night, and despite trailing 109-87 with just over eight minutes to go, the Suns closed the game on a 32-8 run to steal a 119-117 win against a team they're currently chasing in the Western Conference standings.

Perhaps just as critically, the Suns won the fourth quarter 35-21, exorcising some of the demons that come with ranking dead-last in the league in fourth-quarter Net Rating.

“We won a fourth quarter -- finally," Grayson Allen said. "It took us being down 20, whatever it was, but we won a fourth quarter. That was our focus, what we've been talking about was closing out games.”

Not only did the Suns win the final frame, but they picked up another quality win against a team that's actually good. Phoenix was in danger of dropping 7-10 against teams at or above .500 this season, but managed to overcome a demoralizing first three quarters against an opponent that's handily beaten them twice this season.

“We stayed in the fight mentally, because there was a lot of moments where our guys were struggling and frustrated and we were getting our butts kicked, quite frankly," coach Frank Vogel explained. "Could have played better there and could have guarded with more fight and more disposition early in the game. But we've seen firsthand that in the modern NBA, teams are never out of a game."

The question is, after such an improbable, feel-good victory where the Suns got Kevin Durant involved late, played faster, got up 37 3-pointers and beat a playoff-caliber team with a dominant fourth quarter, could this be a much-needed turning point in the season?

After the game, Vogel credited Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal for being vocal during timeouts and encouraging their teammates to stay with it. But in truth, the game felt like an inevitable loss to everyone in attendance -- including the Suns bench, to the observing eye -- until the final five minutes.

Again, the Suns trailed by 22 points with about eight minutes left. The boo birds were out in Phoenix, the vibes in the building were sour and it felt like another loss that would prompt a cascade of "What's wrong with this team?" conversations.

But as much as the process left a lot to be desired, the Suns are prioritizing the results in this case -- especially for a starting lineup that's only played eight games together and a Big 3 that's showed promise despite only playing nine games together.

“Three wins in a row, all three moving in the right direction," Vogel said. "If you can play imperfectly and have lessons learned while you're winning, that's a great sign.”

The end result won't overshadow how Phoenix got outplayed for 90 percent of the night, how they turned made baskets and out-of-bounds turnovers into transition opportunities, or how close they were to another "it's over" loss.

But whether by the power of belief or simply seeing the 3-ball go through the net enough times to realize they still had a chance, the Suns drowned out the boo birds and made their improbable run down the stretch. A small-ball lineup of Booker, Beal, Allen, Durant and Eric Gordon pushed the tempo, fired up a ton of 3s (7-for-11 in the fourth quarter) and switched everything defensively, forcing Sacramento into iso-ball. It was a last-minute curveball that paid off.

That doesn't mean it's a one-off fluke, however, and none of this is meant to detract from the Suns' best win of the season. Durant was otherworldly on both ends in the fourth quarter, guarding Domantas Sabonis on one end and scoring 15 of his 27 points on the other. Grayson Allen, who tied his career high and the franchise record once again with nine made 3s, drilled two big triples in the fourth. Eric Gordon did the same, despite struggling for most of the game. And Booker, who shot 5-for-14, focused on moving the ball in the second half, notching 9 of his 11 assists after the break.

But even the Suns aren't viewing it as some major breakthrough or turning point in their season. It's one of 82 games, and as cliche as it sounds, each one is a new opportunity to build.

“Definitely a positive sign we won a fourth quarter, and we scored 35 points," Vogel said. "But every game is different. So I don't think next game is gonna be about being down and throwing a different lineup out there. We gotta execute with the guys that we have scripted out.”

In truth, it's too soon to make any sweeping declarations. We've been preaching the value of a fully healthy Suns team getting reps together, but part of that argument is acknowledging that it's hard to properly judge based on small sample sizes. That eight-minute stretch to close out Sacramento was too minuscule of a sample size to proclaim this team is suddenly saved, but it's still something Phoenix can build on.

One example? That small-ball closing lineup was a +19 over their five-minute stretch together. They had only played seven minutes together all season, but it served as a positive example of Vogel's willingness to make adjustments and experiment.

“I'm always about putting good stuff on film," Durant said. "We put some good and bad stuff on film tonight that we can learn from, so try to bottle this up and try to emulate that as much as possible as we move forward, and it's about making it a consistent thing for us. I think that transfers from watching film to practice to the games. You can see it's starting to pay off just a tiny bit for us. We got a long ways to go, and I feel like we're in a solid position.”

It's obviously better to learn lessons in wins rather than losses, but as Booker pointed out to The Athletic, sometimes underlying problems can go unaddressed when a team churns out easy wins without ever facing adversity. Tuesday certainly provided adversity, and whether it was self-inflicted or not, they overcame it in memorable fashion.

This wasn't just one isolated win either; since that demoralizing loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Christmas that dropped Phoenix below .500, the Suns have won eight of their last 11 games, sporting a top-five record, top-10 point differential and top-six offense over that stretch.

Ironically enough, Vogel believes it was the Dallas loss where things started to click. In his book, this improbable Kings comeback just builds on their current momentum.

“I thought we did some good things on the Christmas Day game in a loss that I was encouraged about," Vogel said. "I felt like our team was going in the right direction with how we're sharing the basketball and how we're committing to the paint. I don't know if it's since that point, but I know we've won eight of our last 11, so we're 8-3 in the last 11 games and doing some really positive things and building confidence each game that goes by -- tonight being maybe one of the biggest of those games to keep the confidence going.”

Given the team's lack of reps to this point, the current state of the standings and how little time they have to build chemistry, the most pessimistic and optimistic of Suns fans have plenty of evidence to support their viewpoints after a game like this. The defense, body language, scoreboard, balance between the Big 3 -- you name it! -- was concerning through three quarters.

And then a switch flipped in the fourth, and the Suns looked like the powerhouse they're capable of being. It's anyone's guess which Phoenix team we'll get a few days from now, and the narratives will undoubtedly continue to flip-flop with each passing quarter.

But if you were to ask Durant or the rest of the Suns whether they're comfortable with such a win despite how ugly it looked for the majority of the night?

“Hell yeah," Durant said. "It's always about the process with me. The end result is definitely cool, but I care more about how we go about things. And last game [against the Portland Trail Blazers], I didn't like how we went about things, but we still won the game. Tonight, it was one of those games where you definitely hate how you're playing early on, but you still don't give up, and we was able to have some bounces fall our way to win the game.”