Suns' Deandre Ayton After Loss to Knicks: 'I'm Not Used to the No Fight in Us'

The Phoenix Suns are in trouble.

Monday's ugly 102-83 loss to the New York Knicks marked their third straight defeat and sixth in seven games, leading center Deandre Ayton to question the team's effort.

"I don't even know what's going on. For me, I could tell you this: I'm not used to the no fight in us," Ayton told reporters. "I'm used to us being down a hundred and we still are going to pull out and win the game, or we still have that mentality like we're about to win this game. Right now, we don't have that, so that's the only thing that's going on throughout these games and why we're losing. We just got to really lock in and fight. Right now, we can't be thinking that somebody's going to feel sorry for us or thinking somebody is going to save us—nobody is going to save us."

The Suns shot just 39.1 percent, and no player finished with more than 12 points. New York led by as many as 32 points in the most lackadaisical effort of the season from Phoenix.

Devin Booker is slated to miss at least the next three weeks with a groin injury, so things aren't likely to get better in the immediate future. Chris Paul looks like he's finally losing the battle with Father Time at age 37, Ayton's development has plateaued and the Suns roster lacks an alpha dog scorer who can pick up Booker's slack.

Phoenix doesn't have much room for error in a loaded Western Conference playoff race. The Suns would be the No. 8 seed if the season ended today and would be forced to participate in the play-in tournament. They're only three games out of falling out of the play-in entirely, which would be a disastrous result for a team that has been a top-two seed in the West the last two years.