Suns looking to string together wins against reeling Blazers

The Phoenix Suns hope their last victory is one that vaults them into high gear.

If nothing else, they will arrive at the arena in Portland on Sunday night with a solid chance of winning as they battle the struggling Trail Blazers.

Portland just completed a 1-6 road trip in which the six defeats came by an average of 33.1 points. One of the setbacks tied for the fifth worst in NBA history, a 62-point shellacking (139-77) at the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Suns have been underachievers and had lost 11 of 19 games before emerging for a solid 127-109 road win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday.

Bradley Beal poured in a season-best 37 points and Devin Booker tallied 31 for Phoenix, which played one of its better games of the season.

"I thought the whole game was a positive step in the direction of how we want to play offensively," Suns coach Frank Vogel said.

Beal was 14 of 21 from the field, including 8 of 10 from 3-point range, while topping 20 points for the fifth time in his last seven appearances. He has played in just 14 games due to back and ankle injuries.

Beal attempted just 43 treys over his first 13 games before having an increased emphasis to shoot from behind the arc against the Lakers. The eight makes were one shy of his career high.

"It's something that I've been trying to kick myself to do the last five years of my career, to shoot eight-to-10 3-pointers a game," Beal said. "I worked with my training group back in town and got it back feeling right. I was confident in it and once it was in my hands just making it flow."

Kevin Durant added 18 points as the Phoenix Big Three combined for 86 points.

Portland will look to rebound from that horrible road trip in which all six losses were by more than 20 points. It concluded with a 116-93 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday night.

"It's been a tough trip, been a very tough trip," Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups said after Friday's loss. "But I'll be honest with you, when our schedule came out and I seen this trip I said, 'Dang, that's a beast of a trip there.'

"And I didn't even know that we would obviously be injured or hurt or whatever position we would be in. Just a tough trip and it turned out to be even tougher than I thought it would. I'm just happy we're going to be able to get home."

Center Deandre Ayton (knee) missed the entire trip and has sat out 10 straight games overall. Guard Shaedon Sharpe (adductor) missed the Minnesota game.

Regardless, Portland wasn't even competitive over the final three games of the trip, losing by a staggering 113 total points.

"It was a tough trip for us, definitely a tough trip for us," Trail Blazers forward Jerami Grant said. "Got a lot of things we need to figure out in order to get back on track. We've got a lot of young talent, just got to figure out how to put it together, how to mesh together and how to be able to play as one unit."

Backup Jabari Walker had 17 points and a career-best 13 rebounds for Portland after missing the previous four games due to a knee injury.

Toumani Camara and Duop Reath had 14 points apiece and Grant scored 13 for the Trail Blazers.

Anfernee Simons, Portland's most explosive player, missed all 10 of his shots against Minnesota and had five points. Simons is averaging just 10.3 points on 21.6 percent shooting (8 of 37) over the last three games.

The Suns are 2-1 against the Trail Blazers this season, but the loss came in Portland, 109-104 on Dec. 19, despite Durant pumping in 40 points.

--Field Level Media