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Suns' Jeff Hornacek: 'When teams get physical, we look like a high school team'

Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Jeff Hornacek demands to see a little more fight out of his Phoenix Suns as they finish out the final third of the season. 

Monday's gritty and chippy affair against the Miami Heat – a 115-98 loss – apparently wasn't enough. 

Markieff Morris was ejected after committing a hard foul on former teammate Goran Dragic, as was Alex Len for his part in an altercation with Miami's Hassan Whiteside. 

But Hornacek told reporters that he didn't like that it took his team until the second half – when both starters were tossed from the contest – to show fight after getting pushed around for much of the game. 

We have to find out who on this team is going to be tough. In terms of going after balls, we are soft going after everything. Teams just take the ball out of our hands. Maybe they grab your arm but you have to be tougher than that. I don't know what it is but, when teams get physical, we look like a high school team. We have to get tougher and we have to find tougher guys who are going to battle. I get tired of watching us not go after balls. There is nothing worse to me than being soft and not going after a ball.

Phoenix dropped its second in a row to fall 2.5 games behind the Oklahoma City Thunder for the eighth and final playoff spot in the loaded Western Conference. The Suns, who also trail the ninth-place New Orleans Pelicans by 1.5 games, held the last spot for much of the opening part of the season, but a prolonged rut in addition to a surge from the Thunder has them on the outside looking in. 

Since capping a four-game winning streak with a win over the Portland Trail Blazers in mid-January, the Suns have been a bottom-10 team on both offense and defense, dropping 12 of their last 17 games. 

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