Pelicans slow down, irritate Booker, Williamson and McCollum 60-piece: Takeaways from Suns' loss

The Phoenix Suns were a victory away from really putting their footprint into the sixth spot in the West going into Sunday’s matchup against the New Orleans Pelicans. Now they’re back to needing to win to avoid the play-in after falling, 113-105, before a sellout crowd of 17,071 at Footprint Center.

Bradley Beal scored a game-high 33 points to lead the Suns, but the Pelicans got a combined 60 from CJ McCollum (31) and Zion Williamson (29) in snapping Phoenix’s three-game win streak and ending their own four-game skid.

Phoenix (46-32) is still sixth as it has the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Pelicans (46-32), but the two teams have the same record. The Suns still control their destiny to finish in the top six.

Head coach Frank Vogel keeps saying they’ll be fine if it comes down to making the playoffs through the play-in, but no one wants to go through that, especially if James is on the other side of that scenario.

Here are takeaways from Sunday’s loss; the Suns finish their regular-season home schedule Tuesday against the Clippers in the first of a home-away back-to-back against them.

Pelicans had seen enough of 50-point Booker

Pelicans coach Willie Green had seen enough of Devin Booker going for 50-point blasts in three consecutive games against his defense.

He knows Booker got game, as he was his player development coach as an lead assistant in Phoenix, but enough was enough.

Booker figured the Pelicans would be more physical from the start, especially after Green said they played him “soft” in last week’s loss to Phoenix. Booker scored 24 of his 52 points in the first quarter.

So, New Orleans were the aggressor earlier, but Green went to the one guy he knew would follow his defensive gameplan — Jose Alvarado.

The pesky guard was Booker’s shadow in an irritating manner, attempting to get under the four-time All-Star’s skin. It wasn’t 100% effective as Booker still scored 25, but Booker found himself jawing with not only Alvarado, but Dyson Daniels and Trey Murphy III.

The Pelicans can’t guard Booker straight up. Hardly anyone can, but their best defender, Herb Jones, isn’t the answer for Booker. Green gave Jones a chance to check Booker at times, mixed up the coverages, but the main adjustment was making Booker frustrated.

Not uncomfortable. Booker embraces confrontation.

He can talk trash with the best of them, but Alvarado got under his skin. That grew in nature with every 3 Alvarado hit in going a season-high 5-of-10 from deep in scoring 15 points off the bench.

The already brash Alvarado gained even more confidence and looked like the guy who did all he could to frustrate Chris Paul in the 2022 playoffs. Paul got the last laugh with a historic performance of perfection in Game 6 closer in New Orleans.

Booker didn’t get the win Sunday. Vogel felt he got fouled all night — and there’s some truth to that — but the Suns won the season series, 2-1, to have what is becoming an even more important tiebreaker.

The Suns could’ve simmered Alvarado down a decibel or two with a simple screen from say Jusuf Nurkic or Drew Eubanks at say midcourt on the opposite end of the court to do two things.

One, get him off Booker. Two, let Alvarado know he can’t just trail Booker without running into roadblock. Harder to play defense when having eyeballs for the screener instead of the ball handler.

CJ McCollum difference maker

Zion Williamson put on a show with 29 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists and five blocks of the volleyball spike variety — and closed the show with 12 points in the fourth.

The Suns elected to reinsert the 7-footer Nurkic late even though the Pelicans went smaller in sitting 7-footer Jonas Valanciunas within the first four minutes of game.

Vogel said they wanted to have a rim protector to defend Williamson’s rim attacks. Sounds good in theory, but Williamson took Nurkic to the rim for a huge dunk to put New Orleans ahead, 107-101, with 3:07 left.

This was an opportunity for Phoenix to go small down the stretch with Durant at the five and O’Neale at the four to go with Grayson Allen, Booker and Beal, but didn’t.

Nurkic did a solid job in the second matchup in New Orleans as a backline defender, but the Pelicans made key adjustments all night in attacking the Suns improving defense.

As great as Williamson was, CJ McCollum was the difference for New Orleans.

He scored a total of 28 points in his first two games this season against Phoenix, shooting 3-of-13 from 3.

Not good. Not good all, but McCollum more than made up for it Sunday with a team-high 31 points, connecting on 7-of-12 3s. The veteran guard went 3-of-4 in the second quarter alone from deep in leading New Orleans to a 37-24 advantage in the second quarter to take a 56-50 halftime lead.

The game wasn’t over, but the Pelicans answered Phoenix taking a 13-point advantage with an 8-of-13 effort from deep in the second quarter.

Beal still can go get his, didn’t get enough help

Beal has made the most sacrifices of the Big 3, but he showed Sunday what has made him one of the game’s best scorers.

He went 7-of-8 from 3, generated a personal 10-0 run to tie the game in the fourth and extended it to 13-2 with a 3 to put the Suns ahead, 96-95, with 7:50 left in the game.

That was vintage Beal right there. Getting buckets, feeding off the crowd and enjoying the roar with a helicopter celebration. Beal was still finding the paint, guarding Williamson and delivering dimes with seven assists.

Beal also committed four turnovers, but that’s a teamwide problem. The Suns coughed up 16 that led to 19 points for the Pelicans. Not awful, but enough to contribute to the loss.

Missing open 3s didn’t help either.

Allen leads the league in 3-point shooting, but only went just 3-of-10 Sunday and missed wide open ones in going 0-for-5 in the fourth.

He wasn’t the only one who drew blanks from 3. Booker misfired on all six of his attempts.

Durant missed five of eight 3s in scoring 23 points with two coming in the fourth and Gordon only went 1-of-4.

Think about this. McCollum made the same number of threes 3s as Royce O’Neale, Bol Bol, Booker, Durant, Allen and Gordon combined on 19 fewer attempts.

Have opinions about the current state of the Suns? Reach Suns Insider Duane Rankin at dmrankin@gannett.com or contact him at 480-787-1240. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @DuaneRankin.

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