Sexton Carries the Load: 30 Points Power Shorthanded Bulls Past Suns 105-103

Collin Sexton scored 30 points on 11-of-19 shooting and Tre Jones added 21 as the Chicago Bulls — playing without Josh Giddey and Matas Buzelis, both sidelined with right ankle sprains from Tuesday's loss to Oklahoma City — held off the Phoenix Suns 105-103 on Thursday night at Footprint Center. Chicago led for 96 percent of the game, never trailed, and outscored Phoenix 68-44 in the paint and 22-10 in fast break points in picking up the win, their second in three games following an 11-game losing streak. Devin Booker led the Suns with 27 points in his second game back from a right hip injury, and Grayson Allen came off the bench for 21 points. Jalen Green finished with 12 points on 5-of-20 shooting. Phoenix, which also dressed without Dillon Brooks due to a fractured left hand, dropped to 35-27.

Guerschon Yabusele chipped in 16 points and six rebounds in 37 minutes. Leonard Miller grabbed nine rebounds in the starting lineup. Off the bench, Rob Dillingham posted 11 points in 21 minutes and Nick Richards had 9 points and 11 rebounds in 29 minutes — including a pivotal free throw in the closing seconds. Chicago shot 48 percent from the field compared to Phoenix's 39 percent, and while the Bulls struggled from three-point range at 25 percent (7-for-28), they controlled the game through ball movement, paint scoring, and transition offense. The Bulls committed 13 turnovers and scored 13 points off the Suns' 15 turnovers; Phoenix scored 12 off Chicago's miscues, a rare wash in a category that has often buried this team this season.

Wire-to-Wire, Until It Wasn't

The tone was set early. Chicago won the jump ball and then watched Phoenix go three-and-out on the opening possession, and by the time Sexton made a driving layup at the 9:09 mark of the first quarter the Bulls already led 4-2. A Tre Jones and-one off an Ighodaro foul pushed it to 7-2, then a Sexton steal set up an Isaac Okoro layup off a Yabusele assist at 8:13 to make it 9-2 and force a Suns timeout. Phoenix would trim it to 9-5 and then 14-11, but Chicago answered each time, and a pair of Rob Dillingham buckets in the final three minutes of the quarter sent the Bulls into the second up 24-20. The Suns never sniffed the lead in the first — or, for that matter, at any point in the game. Chicago's win probability dipped below 50 percent exactly once all evening, and that was on the opening tip.

The second quarter belonged to Tre Jones. With Giddey unavailable, Jones ran the offense and was exceptional — hitting a pair of driving floaters off Yuki Kawamura assists to push the lead to 32-23, adding a driving layup off a Nick Richards feed to stretch it further, and punctuating the half with a solo drive to make it 52-42 before a late Suns surge — capped by a Booker driving layup and free throw with 25 seconds left — trimmed it to 55-50 at halftime. Grayson Allen came off the bench to hit two three-pointers in the second quarter and keep Phoenix within range. The Bulls still held a five-point halftime lead and had outshot the Suns 48 percent to 39 percent in the half.

Chicago pushed the advantage further in the third. A Tre Jones three off a Yabusele assist opened the quarter and made it 58-50. After Phoenix's Oso Ighodaro scored on back-to-back possessions to briefly cut it to four, Sexton and Okoro answered in sequence, and Yabusele's 23-foot three off an Okoro assist with 6:27 to play in the third pushed the lead to 72-61 — the game's most comfortable margin to that point. Phoenix trimmed it to 76-73 in the final three minutes on a Rasheer Fleming bucket and a Gillespie three, but Jones' back-to-back buckets in the final 35 seconds of the quarter — a running layup and a driving layup — sent Chicago into the fourth up 83-77.

The fourth quarter was where it got ugly. The Bulls opened the period on a 12-4 run, with a Leonard Miller running dunk off a Kawamura assist pushing the lead to 90-79 with 9:16 remaining and a Sexton three off a Jones assist at 6:14 stretching it to 97-85. Chicago had led by as many as 12 — the game was, for all practical purposes, theirs. Then Phoenix found Amir Coffey. The reserve guard hit a 28-foot three off a Booker assist at 4:23 to cut it to 98-91. Then another with 46 seconds left to make it 103-100. Then, after Tre Jones converted one of two free throws to push it back to 104-100 with 27 seconds remaining, Booker stepped into a 27-footer and calmly drained it with 22.9 seconds on the clock. One-point game. Bulls timeout.

The timeout didn't prevent what came next. On the inbound, Isaac Okoro threw the ball out of bounds — a bad pass turnover with 20 seconds left that gave Phoenix the ball down one and a chance to take the lead for the first time all night. Green drove baseline and missed the layup at 4.5 seconds. Richards grabbed the defensive rebound. Amir Coffey committed a personal take foul with 4.4 seconds left, sending Richards to the line. He made the first to push it to 105-103. He missed the second. The rebound was heading out of bounds — Dunn, diving over the baseline, smacked the ball directly at Tre Jones, causing Jones to bobble it. With the ball loose and headed out of bounds, possession would have reverted to Phoenix with a chance to inbound and win or tie, but Jones launched it high into the air, keeping it inbounds just long enough to drain the remaining time off the clock. A high-IQ play in the lowest-margin moment of the game. Chicago walked off the court with a win it both deserved and nearly threw away.

Filling the Holes

Losing Giddey and Buzelis on the same night two days before an away game is not a small thing. Giddey was the primary facilitator and rebounder of this rebuilt roster. Buzelis was the starting small forward and one of the team's few reliable creators off the dribble. Between the two of them, they average meaningful minutes, and neither was available on a night when Chicago opened a five-game road trip in a building where the Suns were 20-13 at home. The fact that this group won anyway — convincingly for most of it — says something.

Sexton was the engine. His 30 points came from everywhere: driving layups, pull-up jumpers, free throws, a timely three in the fourth quarter. He finished 11-of-19 from the field and 6-of-8 from the line with five assists in 38 minutes, a complete offensive performance in a game that needed him to be more than a secondary option. Jones was the surprise — 21 points on 9-of-15 shooting with five assists and just one turnover in 29 minutes, his best two-way night in weeks. With Giddey out, Jones ran the offense and ran it well, directing traffic in the half-court and consistently getting into the lane. The two-point guard lineup worked because both players were decisive.

Yabusele was Yabusele: 16 points, six rebounds, a team-best plus-seven in 37 minutes, and three three-pointers that kept Phoenix's defense from collapsing entirely into the paint. Dillingham gave the bench a reliable secondary scorer with 11 points in 21 minutes, and Olbrich was active and effective as a secondary rebounder and short-roll connector off the bench. Richards' night — 9 points, 11 rebounds, two blocks, and a game-sealing free throw at the end — was the kind of performance this team needs when the starters are carrying heavier loads. Miller grabbed nine rebounds in 24 minutes at the four, doing the dirty work that makes the entire system function.

The paint dominance in this game was not an accident. Chicago had 68 points in the paint compared to Phoenix's 44, and 22 fast break points to the Suns' 10. Those numbers reflect a team that — without its most creative offensive player — chose to attack downhill, generate early offense, and live at the rim. It was smart basketball. The one area of concern, as always, is the late-game execution: the Okoro turnover with 20 seconds left and a one-point lead should not happen, and it very nearly cost them. But the bigger picture here is that this team competed, controlled, and closed — mostly. That's a better version of the Bulls than the one that existed for most of February.

Looking Ahead

The Bulls are now 26-37 and have won two of their last three games. They head to Sacramento next, where they will face the Kings on Sunday night at 8:00 p.m. CT. The status of Giddey and Buzelis — both listed with right ankle sprains — will be the most pressing question over the next 48 hours. This is a five-game road trip, and how Chicago manages the injury situation and player load over that stretch will have significant implications for a team that has played some of its best basketball this season when the post-deadline roster has been healthy and intact.

Phoenix, now 35-27, sits second in the Pacific Division and will host New Orleans on Friday. Booker's 27 points were a legitimate reminder of how good he is — making shots from everywhere despite playing in just his second game back from injury — but the Suns were undone by poor shooting from Green (5-of-20), 15 turnovers, and a defense that allowed 68 points in the paint and couldn't stop Chicago in transition. The late comeback made it closer than the game was. Chicago had this one for a long time. They just had to survive long enough to get it home.