The Phoenix Suns have spent the majority of the 2024-25 NBA season as the league’s biggest disaster, sheltered only by the chaos surrounding Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison.
Yet, the Suns have managed to find some semblance of stability and are making a push toward the Western Conference Play-In Tournament.
On the flip side, the Cleveland Cavaliers have played some of their worst basketball of the season in recent weeks—yet they’ve still managed to go 8-2 over their last 10 games and remain in firm control of the top seed in the Eastern Conference.
With at most three genuine contenders standing in their way, Cleveland’s true test will come when the postseason arrives.
With a star-studded affair set for Friday night in Phoenix, check out our Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Phoenix Suns predictions, including our NBA expert picks, ahead of tip-off on March 21 at 10:00 p.m. ET.
Matchup Cleveland Cavaliers vs Phoenix Suns Overview
Teams: Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Phoenix Suns
Date: Friday, March 21, 2025
Time: 10:00 p.m. ET
Venue: Footprint Center
Win Probabilities
According to our experts’ predictions, the winner in this showdown between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Phoenix Suns is the Suns.
Projected Final Score
Our projected final score for this NBA matchup is Phoenix Suns 107-112 Cleveland Cavaliers.
Expert Prediction: Who Wins?
The Phoenix Suns have begun a slight ascent toward the Western Conference Play-In Tournament, but as the 11th seed with a brutal schedule ahead, they need to start stealing games.
To win against the Cleveland Cavaliers—regardless of the home-court advantage—would be a prime example of that. While Phoenix has stumbled through the season and looked like a far cry from the sum of its parts, that hasn’t quite been the case in Cleveland.
The Cavaliers are enjoying a season for the ages, fresh off a 16-game win streak before a West Coast swing on their schedule. With a six-game cushion over the second-place Boston Celtics, Cleveland essentially needs to come out of this road trip largely unscathed to secure home-court advantage throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs.
That starts in earnest on Friday night when the Cavs take on Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and the Suns in the desert.
Why the Cleveland Cavaliers Can Cover
It may be hard to believe—for a team that has had to rely on 35-year-old Mason Plumlee for long stretches this season, and then made a sizeable investment in forgotten Charlotte Hornets big Nick Richards—but the Phoenix Suns have struggled to defend the paint this year.
Stunning, right? But the Suns’ all-perimeter, all-scoring approach has left an interior defense that remains vulnerable, regardless of opponent. Already one of the league’s worst defenses, ranked 27th in season-long defensive rating and a slightly less dire 20th over their last 10 games, Phoenix crumbles when teams can penetrate.
The Suns allow the 10th most points in the paint per game this year, at 49.0, and that figure is almost aided by their dearth of wing defenders. Opponents can truly score at any level against Phoenix, and the need for penetration is lessened because Bradley Beal, Devin Booker, and Royce O’Neal simply can’t hold their ground on the outside either.
In this matchup, however, against these Cavaliers, their foes are licking their chops at the vacant paint. With Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley, Cleveland has a pair of bigs who can score from the post and are deadly efficient rolling toward the basket in the pick-and-roll with dynamo guards Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland.
The Cavs have been an elite offense all year, ranked first in offensive rating in season-long metrics and 10th over their last 10 games—which, again, has been among their worst stretches of the year. Their hyper-efficient shot diet plays a part, but in this matchup, they can tailor that menu.
Cleveland scores 50.7 points in the paint per game and could feasibly get more production if it didn’t have such quality on the perimeter. An offense locked into efficiency and smart production, they will spam offense through Mobley and Allen here to exploit the Suns’ biggest defensive weakness.
Why the Phoenix Suns Can Cover
The Cleveland Cavaliers have had a remarkable season, exploiting mismatches both inside and outside, while relying on their mega-efficiency offensively and an All-World caliber defensive anchor in Evan Mobley.
It takes teams much, much better than these Phoenix Suns to knock the Cavs off, and in all likelihood, even the Suns’ best game won’t be enough to beat the Cavs. Phoenix can, however, keep this game relatively close and open a path to covering by limiting two things that crushed them in the first matchup between these teams, which provided Cleveland with too many extra possessions.
The first is turnovers, an issue that has plagued the Suns all year long—despite the presence of two of the league’s best point guards in terms of assist-to-turnover ratio in Tyus Jones and Montee Morris. The Suns have averaged a turnover rate a touch below 13% this season, but it dipped to 17% in the first matchup.
Cleveland’s offense is too good and too efficient to give it that many extra possessions, and that showed up on the offensive boards too.
Despite a relatively average shooting night in the first matchup, the Suns lost by 26 in large part because they could not finish defensive possessions or give their offense second-chance points. Phoenix had an offensive rebound rate of just 2.8% in that meeting—while the Cavs rebounded nearly a third of their misses, at 31.3%.
Phoenix isn’t going to out-rebound such a larger team, but simply having a greater commitment to ball security and putting bodies on the Cavs on both ends when shots go up could allow them to remain competitive.
How to Make Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Phoenix Suns Picks
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