The opener in Detroit showed how carefully Phoenix is handling its starters. Booker, Green, Brooks, Bridges and Oso Ighodaro sat out the entire second half of a 109-107 loss. Booker still led the team with 13 points in 16 minutes. Brooks and Green had 11 each, and Green got to the line 6 times in 15 minutes. A small sample, but it's the downhill game Phoenix wants from him.
Both teams are short at center. Mark Williams had surgery on a torn labrum and is out for an extended stretch, so Ighodaro has been starting and the backup job is still open. Utah is in worse shape. Jusuf Nurkic is out at least 4 weeks with a partial plantar plate tear in his right foot. Kyle Filipowski is progressing but has no timeline, and Blake Hinson is dealing with an adductor issue. That has left Mo Bamba to soak up the minutes, and he pulled down 10 rebounds against Denver. Whichever team gets more out of its backup bigs probably controls the glass.
Bridges is the other name worth watching. In his preseason debut he had 8 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists in 14 minutes, made a 3 and made a few hustle plays on defense. That's the kind of game Phoenix had in mind when it traded for him. For Utah, Lauri Markkanen led the way with 17 in the 109-97 win over Denver in Boulder, and the Jazz will want him and Peterson on the floor together for real minutes before the games count. Expect a tuneup that tells you something about rotations and very little about April.