Suns Lose Preseason Opener 109-107 to Pistons; Bridges Debuts, Brooks Sets Tone Early

DETROIT — The new-look Suns’ first night had a little bit of everything except a win. Monday’s 109-107 preseason loss to the Pistons at Little Caesars Arena gave Phoenix its first real look at the reconfigured roster: a 19-point first-half lead built and then surrendered, all five starters shelved for the entire second half, and Dillon Brooks being Dillon Brooks before the five-minute mark of the first quarter.

The game itself was a tale of two halves. Phoenix carried a 68-50 lead into halftime, with the offense humming and the lead stretching as high as 19. Detroit chipped away after the break against Phoenix’s deep bench, and the two-point margin held. It is worth remembering exactly what these October minutes mean: Jordan Ott got his starters their scripted first-half run — Devin Booker, Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, Miles Bridges and Oso Ighodaro all sat the second half — and then turned the game over to the camp competition. Our league-wide Monday preseason takeaways have the full night’s scores; this is the Phoenix version.

Booker, in 16 minutes, was the best player on the floor for either team in the minutes that mattered: a team-high 13 points on efficient shooting, the unmistakable center of everything Phoenix wants to do. Green and Brooks scored 11 apiece, and Collin Gillespie was perfect off the bench — 8 points on 3-of-3 shooting, 2-of-2 from deep. For Detroit, Cade Cunningham played the same 16-minute script (10 points), Ron Holland II led the Pistons with 14 off the bench, and the home team closed out a game that felt, for stretches, like it had slipped away.

But the sequence everyone will remember came with 7:23 left in the first quarter, and it deserves to be described plainly, because it was a preseason dustup, not a brawl. Brooks was guarding Detroit forward John Collins in the paint with his usual physicality and extended his forearm, making contact. On the same possession, Collins grabbed an offensive rebound over Brooks, who kept reaching for the ball, wrapping around Collins from behind. Collins turned, faced Brooks and put his hand to Brooks’ face with the ball. Referees and security separated the two. The initial call was double technicals; after a video review, Collins was assessed a flagrant-1 and Brooks a technical, and Brooks split the two free throws. The whole thing was over in less than five minutes of game time — and it immediately lit up social media, with Mike Vigil’s clip of the exchange going viral. The first two Suns to Brooks’ side, notably, were the two newest and oldest faces of the franchise’s identity: Miles Bridges and Devin Booker.

This is the package, and Phoenix knew exactly what it was buying. Brooks, in his second season with the Suns, led the NBA in technical fouls last season — a reputation he wears openly, and one the Suns have leaned into rather than apologized for. The good news for Phoenix: this one doesn’t carry over. Technical foul accumulation resets for the regular season, where 16 marks a one-game suspension and every two after that. October is precisely when you want your agitator agitating; the question is only whether the edge comes with the discipline, and on Monday it did. After the dustup, Brooks went right back to playing winning basketball: 11 points, 2-of-4 from deep, and a transition lob to Green that was the night’s prettiest Phoenix possession.

Here’s the part that should excite Suns fans more than the scuffle. Booker spent camp talking up Brooks as a playmaker — not just a pest, but a connector — and on Monday night Brooks matched the combined assist totals of Booker and Green. That’s a small sample doing real work: if the player who sets the emotional tone is also the one finding cutters in transition, the identity this team is trying to build starts to make sense.

And then there’s Bridges, the summer’s big swing, in a Suns uniform for the first time. Eight points, five rebounds and four assists in 14 minutes — not a stat line that jumps off the page, but a shift-by-shift look that did. He defended multiple positions, pushed in transition, and was one of the first players to Brooks’ side when things got chippy, which tells you something about how quickly he’s been absorbed into the locker room. Phoenix paid real capital for him in July: Grayson Allen, Royce O’Neale and an unprotected 2033 first-round pick went to Charlotte for Bridges, a 2029 first-rounder and a 2027 second-rounder. General manager Brian Gregory said at the time that Bridges “embodies the grit, competitiveness and work ethic that fit our identity.” Fourteen minutes into his first preseason game, that identity looked like a reasonable bet.

Green’s night deserves its own paragraph, because it contained the most interesting developmental signal of the evening. He attempted six free throws in 15 minutes, making four. That is a real number for a player who attempted a career-low 2.7 per game last season — his career high is 6.1, set in 2022-23 with Houston. Nobody is drawing conclusions from 15 preseason minutes, but the intent was visible: Green attacked the paint instead of settling, and if that version of his game shows up in November, it changes his ceiling in this offense.

The bigger rotation picture is still being drawn. Starting center Mark Williams is out for an extended period after Sept. 10 surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder, suffered in an offseason workout — which is why Ighodaro opened at center on Monday and why the frontcourt minutes behind him are the camp’s most-watched competition. This is Ott’s second season after a 45-37 campaign that ended in a first-round sweep by Oklahoma City, and the mandate is clear: the defense-and-effort identity that defined last year has to survive the roster turnover. Monday’s first half, before the bench gave the lead back, suggested it can.

Next up: Wednesday night in Chicago against the Bulls, where the evaluation continues and the rotations presumably stretch a little longer. Preseason scores don’t count — but October tells you who’s ready for real minutes, and Monday’s early answers were encouraging: the Bridges fit looks immediate, Green is hunting contact, and Brooks is already setting the edge this team wants to play with. The Lakers-Kings nightcap closed out the night’s slate, and our film room is already digging into preseason defensive tape — plus the longer view on the NBA’s Las Vegas expansion question, which never really leaves the conversation around this franchise.