Pacific Notes: Brooks, Gillespie, Allen, Maluach, Payton II, Porzingis, Curry

Suns wing Dillon Brooks was arrested on suspicion of DUI early Friday morning. His teammates says Brooks apologized to the team for his actions, according to Duane Rankin of the Arizona Republic.

“Just hate to see it for him, but he’s human. We’re all humans,” Collin Gillespie said. “We’re not above anybody else. We all make mistakes. He knows that. He owned it,” Gillespie said. “He apologized to the team, but we got his back. Human beings make mistakes, we all make mistakes. Learn from it. He’s just in the public eye more than any other regular human being. That stuff goes on every day and you just don’t hear about it from other people because it’s not ‘Dillon Brooks’ per se.”

Brooks, who is sidelined with a fractured hand, was in attendance for the Suns game on Friday but didn’t speak to the media.

“I know he feels really bad about it,” Grayson Allen said. “I’m sure whenever he feels like he needs to say something, he’ll say something, but we’re still focusing on what we can do on the court with him out. We want to get him back and hold it down in the meantime.”

Here’s more from the Pacific Division:

• The Suns barely held off the Pelicans, 118-116, on Friday. Rookie lottery pick Khaman Maluach had a career-high five blocks in a season-high 20 minutes after posting 10 in his previous 27 games. “The biggest thing is just that he knows he’s getting consistent minutes,” coach Jordan Ott said, per Rankin. “Hopefully, the first-game jitters of being in there were out after last night. Doesn’t change, we wouldn’t put you in there if we didn’t believe in you, and we’re going to continue to help him.”
• If Seattle gets an expansion team, Gary Payton II wants to be a part of it. His father Gary Payton, of course, was a longtime star with the SuperSonics. He said, perhaps jokingly, that he’d request a trade from the Warriors to play there. “Respectfully. I love it here so much. But if we do (have a Seattle team) when I’m still here, I definitely want to go back and play there,” he told Nick Friedell of The Athletic. In any case, he’d like to see the NBA have a team in the city. “It was like a dream come true all over again,” he said of a potential franchise in Seattle. “To be able to see them, to be able to go there and we have an opportunity to sit down and watch a game. Hopefully, they can do it here in a few years so I can possibly go back and put on a Seattle SuperSonics jersey. But other than that, it’s for the basketball culture. Even if I do play for them or not, it will be good for the city of Seattle and good for the NBA.”
• Kristaps Porzingis and Seth Curry have been upgraded to questionable for tonight’s game in Oklahoma City, ESPN’s Anthony Slater tweets. Porzingis has only played once for Golden State since it acquired him due to a mystery illness. Curry has been out since Jan. 30 due to a knee injury.