{"id":554945,"date":"2026-03-23T08:36:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T08:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/554945\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T08:36:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T08:36:23","slug":"suns-cruise-past-raptors-to-halt-five-game-skid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/554945\/","title":{"rendered":"Suns cruise past Raptors to halt five-game skid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PHOENIX \u2014 Devin Booker scored 25 points, Jalen Green added 20 and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/phoenix-suns\/\" class=\"sn-team-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-team=\"phoenix-suns\" data-league=\"nba\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Phoenix Suns<\/a> snapped a five-game NBA losing streak by beating the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/toronto-raptors\/\" class=\"sn-team-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-team=\"toronto-raptors\" data-league=\"nba\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Toronto Raptors<\/a> 120-98 on Sunday night.<\/p>\n<p>Phoenix won its 40th game of the season, which is already a four-win improvement over last year with 10 games to play.<\/p>\n<p>The Suns never trailed and took an 18-point lead into halftime. They extended the advantage to 92-62 late in the third when Booker got fouled while making a driving layup, adding the free throw to convert the three-point play.<\/p>\n<p>Booker shot 9-of-15 from the field, including 3-of-6 from 3-point range. Collin Gillespie added 16 points. The Suns&#8217; second unit played well with Ryan Dunn scoring 12 and rookie Rasheer Fleming adding 11.<\/p>\n<p>Toronto lost its second straight. The Raptors are still No. 5 in the Eastern Conference playoff race, but fell to 39-31, which is just a half-game ahead of the Atlanta Hawks and Philadelphia 76ers. The top six teams automatically make the playoffs in each conference.<\/p>\n<p>Scottie Barnes led the Raptors with 17 points. RJ Barrett and Ja&#8217;Kobe Walter both added 13.<\/p>\n<p>Phoenix jumped out to a 34-20 after one quarter after shooting 8-of-12 from 3-point range and extended the advantage to 66-48 by halftime. Booker led the Suns with 12 points before the break, while Barnes had 13 for the Raptors.<\/p>\n<p>The banged-up Suns won despite missing a big chunk of their playing rotation, including Royce O&#8217;Neale (knee), Grayson Allen (knee), Dillon Brooks (hand) and Mark Williams (foot).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Raptors: Visit the Utah Jazz on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Suns: Host the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX \u2014 Devin Booker scored 25 points, Jalen Green added 20 and the Phoenix Suns snapped a five-game&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-554945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}