The Phoenix Suns have the best record in the Pacific Division right now.

You wouldn’t know it based on their odds to win the division.

A couple of weeks ago, Phoenix was +1200 to win the Pacific. Coming off a 114-104 win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night, the Suns are now +600 to finish first.

Can Phoenix hold off the Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers the rest of the way?

Last night represented an important step towards doing exactly that.

Here is the Morning Coffee for Wednesday March 3, 2021.

Suns Climb To Top Of Pacific

The Suns (+110) picked up an important win over the Lakers on Tuesday night despite being without their best scorer for most of the second half.

Devin Booker scored 17 points before he was ejected with just over seven minutes left in the third quarter.

Dario Saric scored a team-high 21 points off the bench. Mikal Bridges scored 19. Chris Paul chipped in eight points and 10 assists.

The win snapped a string of five straight losses for Phoenix at the Staples Center, dating back to November of 2017.

At 23-11, the Suns now have the second-best record in the NBA.

While Phoenix picked up a win in Los Angeles, the Boston Celtics (+170) helped the Suns with a 117-112 win over the Clippers, who were without Kawhi Leonard.  

Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown combined for just 32 points, but absolutely shut down Los Angeles at the defensive end of the floor.

The Clippers went 0-for-8 in the fourth quarter when Tatum or Brown was the primary defender.

Paul George was 1-of-11 from the field overall when guarded by one of those two players.

As it stands right now, Phoenix owns the best win percentage in the Pacific, with the Lakers and Clippers both within a half game.

For as tight as that division battle is, the Clippers remain the favourite to win the division at +100, followed by the Lakers at +110 and then the Suns all the way down at +600.

It will be very interesting to see if Phoenix can hold off the two teams from Los Angeles the rest of the way.

The fact that they were 12-to-1 to win the Pacific a couple of weeks ago and they are 6-to-1 to win it right now creates an added level of intrigue for the Suns going into the second half of the season.

Habs Earn First Win Under Ducharme

Carey Price made 26 saves as the Montreal Canadiens (-155) beat the Ottawa Senators 3-1 on Tuesday night.

Brendan Gallagher, Jeff Petry and Tyler Toffoli scored for Montreal, which snapped a five-game slide and picked up its first win under head coach Dominique Ducharme.

The Habs will host the Winnipeg Jets in back-to-back games before heading out west for a six-game road trip that begins next Monday.

It will be absolutely crucial for the Canadiens to earn at least a split with Winnipeg as they try to get their season back on track.

Sticking with the Jets, Winnipeg (-125) beat the Vancouver Canucks 5-2 on Tuesday night for their fifth win in six games.

Blake Wheeler and Kyle Connor both had a goal and two assists. Mark Scheifele had three assists.

All of a sudden, Winnipeg owns the second-best record in the NHL’s North Division.

Not bad for a team that is a +850 long shot to win the division.

March Madness

The 2021 NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Tournament doesn’t start until March 18, but we got a little preview of some March Madness on Tuesday night.

The Milwaukee Panthers came back from down 24 points in the final 6:26 of regulation to beat the Wright State Raiders 94-92 in the Horizon League Conference Tournament.

Milwaukee was a +650 underdog to win the game.

Wright State, which was a -250 favourite to win the Horizon League tournament, absolutely fell apart against the eighth-seeded Panthers.

While we’ll have to wait a couple more weeks for the actual tournament to begin, Milwaukee’s upset was yet another reminder of the type of basketball we can look forward to once March Madness arrives on TSN.