No Devin Booker.

No TJ Warren.

No wonder Phoenix nearly matched a season low for points in Friday’s 99-85 loss to Orlando before 13,228 fans at Talking Stick Resort Arena.

The Suns managed just 82 points in a 22-point home loss Nov. 4 to Brooklyn. They didn't lose by that wide of a margin Friday but shot just 40.5 percent, going 7-of-28 from 3 without its top two scorers.

“They carry a lot of the load,” Suns rookie 7-footer Deandre Ayton said about Booker and Warren.

Ayton saw it as an opportunity to play with different guys. Troy Daniels and Ryan Anderson saw action after seeing limited time of late.

Phoenix was in on-the-fly mode as Booker wasn’t ruled out until about an hour before tip, but Ayton said the game felt normal and “smooth."

So Ayton is wondering why the Suns (4-18) lost.

“We’ve just got to find a way to finish these games,” Ayton said. “... Everybody’s competing. Try to go back and look at some of the numbers. It’s kind of confusing because I’m like, I know everybody was playing hard today, but we still lose.”

A little naive perhaps, but Ayton, who scored a team-high 19 points, said he doesn’t sleep when Phoenix loses and watches film to figure out what happened.

So it looks like another sleepless night for the rookie, but Phoenix didn’t change its narrative Friday on how it's lost recent games.

Lapses leading to losses

The Suns played hard, again, executed their offense for stretches, again, but had another lapse that once again overrode their positive moments.

Orlando turned its slim four-point lead going into the fourth into an 81-71 advantage with 9:14 left in the game courtesy of Terrence Ross, who went on his own personal 6-0 run.

But what did Phoenix do to contribute to falling behind by double digits that quickly?

They took five 3-pointers and missed them all less 12 hours after first-year coach Igor Kokoskov stressed attacking the paint.

Jamal Crawford took it to rim once, but 7-footer Mo Bamba rejected the layup.

The Suns could’ve really forced the Magic, who were on the fifth and final game out west of their six-game road trip, to work defensively, but they bailed them out with long 3s.

Orlando ended up outscoring Phoenix, 24-14, in the fourth.

“Your mind can always kind of be already home,” Orlando center Nikola Vucevic said. “I thought we did a good job of regrouping after a little bit of a sluggish start, especially in the second half, we played much better, especially in the fourth”

Vucevic churned out a game-high 25 points and 15 boards. Aaron Gordon returned from back spasms to score 18 and Ross pumped out 21 off the bench.

With Gordon back, Orlando had its best players.

Without Booker and Warren, Phoenix didn’t.

Injured stars

Kokoskov knew Friday morning Warren would be out. The team’s second-leading scorer has been playing with an injured ankle and the Suns decided to sit him.

Booker’s situation is different.

Kokoskov said at shootaround Booker was going to start, but Phoenix announced about an hour before the game the team’s top scorer wasn’t playing.

“I found out literally right before the game,” Kokoskov said. “Devin Booker is our franchise player. There’s no one game we would do anything against a player’s health. We would never push anybody to play. He couldn’t play.”

Kokoskov also revealed Booker played through the injury in Wednesday’s road loss to the Los Angeles Clippers.

“He was in pain, obviously,” Kokoskov said. “Didn’t complain during the game, but you could tell. He didn’t limp really, but you tell when watching film, he was hurt.”

Kokoskov said Booker hurt himself “a couple of days ago” and confirmed it happened before Phoenix played the Clippers. So something happened between Tuesday’s home game against Indiana and before Wednesday’s game at Los Angeles.

Booker, who attended Friday’s game, wasn’t in the locker room during media availability. The Suns clearly missed him and Warren, who together average a combined 42.2 points per game.

“Book is the best player on our team and TJ brings so much,” Suns rookie point guard Elie Okobo said.

Doing too much?

Considering Warren and Booker had taken 35.1 percent of the Phoenix’s shots before Friday's game, someone else had to make up that percentage.

It looked like Josh Jackson tried to do that.

Getting the start, Jackson attempted game-high and season-high 21 shots, making only five. A 28.6 percent 3-point shooter, Jackson went 0-of-4 from 3.

“A few of my shots were kind of questionable,” Jackson said. “Came at bad times. I got to get better with that.”

Warren is shooting 51.1 percent overall, 45 percent from 3.

Booker hasn’t been as accurate (44 percent from the field, 31.7 percent from 3), but he’s averaging 24.5 points and leads the Suns in assists at 7.0 a game.

So Phoenix was also without its top playmaker.

It looked like Jackson was trying to be that, too. He finished with a game-high seven assists and had just one turnover.

Jackson remains perhaps Phoenix’s most head-scratching player.

He'll take a bad shot, draw a technical and turn the ball over and then turn around and nail a tough three, make a great pass and draw a charge.

The fourth overall pick of the 2017 draft is part of Phoenix’s young core, but he has been inconsistent in trying to take the next step.

He's still trying to figure out his fit on this team, too.

Not enough

Okobo essentially started for Booker after scoring a career-high 19 points Wednesday. He had just nine on 8-of-12 shooting (3-of-5 from 3) and had four assists in 32 minutes.

Wasn’t nearly as efficient Friday.

Okobo went 4-of-11 in scoring nine points as he made just 1-of-3 3-pointers in 28 minutes, 55 seconds. He had more fouls (3) than assists (2).

The rookie from France continues to have good and bad moments, but this is his time to show he can handle being that backup point guard. Phoenix needs him to do that to allow Booker to play off the ball.

Rookie De’Anthony Melton played four minutes, didn’t take a shot, but he’s not ready to log major minutes. Okobo has shown he can, and he will have to since Phoenix recently waived Isaiah Canaan.

Now, let’s come full circle to Ayton.

Run big fella

Faced another inside-outside big. Vucevic overcame missing four of his first five shots to scoring 17 points in the second half on 7-of-11 shooting.

Ayton said Vucevic reminded him of Denver’s Nikola Jokić, who gave him the business early in the season with a triple-double of 35 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists.

There are similarities. Ayton will see them again and others like them in the future, but here’s the deal:

Ayton continues to lack the consistent aggressiveness to force the other’s team main big to guard him or at least be concerned about guarding him. He took 16 shots, but that was largely a product of the Suns being without Booker and Warren.

Vucevic said Ayton was a “tough matchup,” but Phoenix could have made it even tougher by finding Ayton down the floor in transition more and force Vucevic to keep up with him.

That’s how he can really punish teams. Ayton says he like to run, but the Suns, again, don't have the point guards to turn games into a track meet to take advantage of his speed advantage on other bigs.

Final line

Daniels scored eight points, going 2-of-5 from 3, in 16 minutes, after not playing in 13 of Phoenix’s previous 14 games in November.

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