Chris Paul is out at least another month with a broken right thumb, and Devin Booker entered health and safety protocols hours before tipoff. Even with their opponent absent both members of basketball's best backcourt, though, the depleted, rebuilding Portland Trail Blazers were still sent to a third straight blowout loss.

The Phoenix Suns routed Portland 120-90 on Wednesday night at Footprint Center, barely skipping a beat without Paul and Booker to earn their 50th win of the season. Monty Williams' team now leads the Golden State Warriors by seven games atop the Western Conference, with six weeks left to play in the regular season.

The Suns are bound for the No. 1 seed, basically, and played like it despite missing their two best players. Frankly, even the league's other bottom-dwellers could've dispatched of the Blazers with similar authority given their glut of unforced errors on both sides of the ball Wednesday night.

“I didn't like our attention to detail tonight,” Chauncey Billups said after the game. “It just  wasn't there from the very start of the game—literally the first play of the game.”

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Mikal Bridges' curl jumper on the opening possession and Josh Hart's stilted, missed runner on the other end can at least be excused by Portland's unique circumstances, though. It's not just that Damian Lillard hasn't played in two months, Nassir Little is out for the season's remainder and Jusuf Nurkic just joined them on the sideline, or even that the Blazers finally pulled the trigger on a much-needed roster overhaul at the trade deadline.

This team has won plenty of games in 2021-22 despite a significant talent deficit. Barely two weeks ago, new-look Portland rode its best basketball of the season to a four-game winning streak at the All-Star break. The Blazers, unfortunately, are on a new streak now—one of three losses by 30 points or more.

The significant strides they took post-deadline weren't there against Phoenix. Of course, Nurkic and Justise Winslow—missing his second consecutive game with Achilles soreness—weren't on the floor, either, replaced in Portland's rotation by Brandon Williams and Drew Eubanks.

“It's kinda crazy,” Billups said. “We always have new guys, so we get to a point where we play the right way and we start making a lot of progress, but we have new guys all the time. So we're just not to the point yet, but I thought we competed pretty decent. We get to a point where we play the right way, but add new guys and then kinda lose some progress.”

The Blazers played hard on Wednesday. Anfernee Simons carved up the Suns early, efficiently picking his spots as a scorer and passer before slowing down once Phoenix started trapping him high up the floor. Williams showed some real on-ball juice again, and Trendon Watford flashed as a playmaker while putting together one of his best performances of the season.

Continuity is of utmost importance in the NBA, though, and Portland just doesn't have it—a dispiriting reality put in even starker contrast by the league's best team, even down a pair of All-NBA guards.

“They're just a well-oiled machine,” Billups said of the Suns. “It doesn't matter who plays, they just play the right way no matter who's out there.”