We all witnessed a basketball atrocity in the Suns’ season opener.
Portland scored the first 21 points of the game. The Suns lost before they even scored a single point. Phoenix didn’t get on the board until Devin Booker went to the free-throw line with 5:54 left in the first quarter, and the Suns didn’t make a field goal until Oso Ighodaro dunked with 4:27 to go. After 12 minutes, it was 43-12.
The final at Moda Center on Wednesday night was 124-83. A 41-point loss to open the 2026-27 season, with
the Suns trailing by as many as 52.
Phoenix finished at 35.7% from the field and 6-of-31 from three. Damian Lillard, playing his first regular-season game for Portland in 1,310 days, dropped 25 and matched the Suns’ team three-point total alone with 6 of his own. It was rare territory we entered. Just how rare, you ask?
The History
So here’s the question every Suns fan is asking this morning. Has a team ever lost its season opener by more than 40 and still made the playoffs? The answer is yes. Exactly once.
According to Basketball Reference, over the past 50-plus seasons, only six teams in NBA history have lost their own season opener by more than 40 points, and two of them joined the list on Wednesday night.
The Miami Heat are the only team that made the playoffs after a 40+ point loss in their opener. And it was actually on their ring ceremony night, which is an incredible nugget I found looking this up. That Heat team ended up getting swept by that same Bulls team that spanked them on opening night in the 1st round of the playoffs that year.
The Chicago Bulls joined Phoenix in the club last night, after getting smacked by 43 points to the Raptors in their season-opener.
Now, this is a very small sample size of teams, but the fact that it’s that short a list tells you everything you need to know about how rare it is. Blowouts like this happen in the NBA, but rarely ever on opening night. To people saying it’s just one game, it is. But it was one of the worst “one games” in NBA history given the context of the season opener.
Especially after we heard about continuity, how the team was in the gym together all summer, etc., all offseason and on Media Day.
You’ll notice the Suns are on this list twice, with both games coming against the Blazers. I was in the building for that one, unfortunately.
The Suns got humbled. Plain and simple. Now, it’s about how they respond. We will learn a lot about this team on Saturday night based on how they respond.
The energy needs to be better. The effort needs to be better. The ball movement. The shot selection. The defense. The communication. All of it needs to be better.
They have two full days off before hosting the Golden State Warriors in Phoenix on Saturday night. Which version of the Suns will we get? Either way, it will tell us a lot.
