After what many thought was going to be a lost season for the Phoenix Suns, the fast-paced brand of basketball that made them so fun to watch during Steve Nash's heyday has returned and produced a 38-29 record to this point in the season.
Phoenix, currently ninth in the Western Conference, is locked in a dogfight with the Memphis Grizzlies for the eighth seed in the playoffs, and its fate rests in how well they play the rest of March.
All seven of the Suns' remaining games this month are against teams with worse records than their own. They will need all the wins they can get in March, because in April, their schedule is gruesome.
The Suns will have to play the Los Angeles Clippers, Portland Trail Blazers, Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs and two potentially very important games in terms of seeding against the Dallas Mavericks and Grizzlies.
The majority of Phoenix's remaining games this season will also be played on the road, where they are just .500 on the season, including a difficult stretch in April, where they will have to travel to New Orleans, San Antonio and Dallas in the span of four days.
Despite this, I expect Goran Dragic, Gerald Green and a healthy Eric Bledsoe to lead the Suns to the playoffs for the first time since 2010.
Reach the columnist at hkossodo@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @HKossodo
