Winless Suns fire Watson

PHOENIX — The Phoenix Suns have fired coach Earl Watson just three games in to the NBA season.

The Suns announced the firing Sunday night after hours of meetings at the team’s headquarters.

Assistant coach Jay Triano, a former head coach of the Toronto Raptors, was named interim coach.

Watson was promoted from assistant to interim coach of the Suns after Jeff Hornacek was fired Feb. 1, 2016. The interim tag was removed on April 19 of that year. With an extremely young team, the Suns struggled under Watson. He compiled a 33-85 record. Watson’s only full season was 2016-17, when the team went 24-58.

Owner Robert Sarver apparently didn’t like what he saw. Phoenix is 0-3 and two of the losses were especially ugly. The Suns were blown out 124-76 by the Portland in their season opener Wednesday night, the most onesided loss in franchise history and the most one-sided season opener for any NBA team.

Phoenix was routed by the Clippers in Los Angeles 130-88 on Saturday night.

Watson’s dismissal is the first NBA coaching change in well over a year. Hornacek’s hiring by the New York Knicks, which was finalized in June 2016, had been the most recent change — and the irony there is that Watson got the job in Phoenix with 33 games left in the 201516 season, after the Suns fired Hornacek.

Watson was the league’s second-youngest active coach behind the Lakers’ Luke Walton, and the Suns were tied with the Chicago Bulls as having the youngest opening-night roster in the NBA this season.

“I’d like to see the fight be a little bit more,” Watson said after the blowout loss to the Clippers. “Or a lot more, until you know they’re just fatigued.”

The Suns came into this season with only four losses by 40 or more points in franchise history. They’ve had two in the first three games of this season. Phoenix has not made the playoffs in seven years.