Booker historic three straight 50-point games vs. Pels, play-in impact: Takeaways from huge Suns win
Duane Rankin
NEW ORLEANS — Devin Booker splattered all over the New Orleans Pelicans once again in leading the Phoenix Suns to a crucial and much-needed 124-111 win Monday night before a sellout crowd of 17,753 at Smoothie King Center.
Booker scored 52 points, with 37 coming in the first half, and hit a career-high eight shots from 3 to go along with a game-high nine assists. He had reached six made 3s in 26 previous games, with the first being in his rookie season, before matching that number for a 27th game and finally surpassing it early in the second half against the Pelicans (45-30).
As big as the 3s were for Booker, he had five finishes at the rim in taking advantage of how the Pelicans were defending him. He had two straight driving buckets to keep New Orleans at bay after it cut Phoenix's 27-point lead to seven with 2:28 left in game.
Bradley Beal followed with a layup to push Phoenix's advantage back to double digits, 121-111, with 62 seconds left. Phoenix (44-31) wound up enduring a Pelicans' push in going 3-2 in an up-and-down road trip:
104-102 loss at Spurs (without Victor Wembanyama).
104-97 win at Nuggets (defending NBA champions).
128-103 loss at Thunder (without Shai Gilgeous-Alexander).
124-111 win at Pelicans.
Here are takeaways from Monday's win as all five Phoenix starters reached double figures in points. Kevin Durant posted 20 points, Jusuf Nurkic grinded out a double-double of 19 points and 19 boards, Beal added 13 with 10 coming in the second half and Grayson Allen chipped in 11.
Historic Devin Booker night
This was Booker’s third straight 50-point game versus New Orleans, and he joined Wilt Chamberlain as the only players in NBA history to score 50-plus points in three straight games against the same opponent.
Last season, Booker blitzed the Pelicans for 58 in an 118-114 victory on Dec. 17, 2022, in Phoenix. This season, he cooked them for 52 in an 123-109 win on Jan. 19 before family and friends — he played high school ball in Moss Point, Miss., a little more than 90 minutes from New Orleans.
Booker splashed six 3s in both games. He returned to New Orleans in a shooting slump from 3 as he was 18-of-64 from deep in 10 games since returning from an right ankle sprain that sidelined him four games.
Like his in previous 52-point night in New Orleans, Booker started hot. He scored 25 in the first quarter against the Pelicans back in January and 24 in the first Monday.
When asked about the rough stretch from 3 after Sunday’s practice, Booker said, “Just a bad shooting time. I believe in them.”
Frank Vogel wasn’t sweating it, either.
“Just a rare stretch,” he said. “I’m not worried about it.”
Then a little under two hours before the game, Pelicans coach Willie Green said he didn’t want to be reminded of Booker’s 52-point performance this season in New Orleans.
“Devin is tough,” Green said. “There is a reason he is one of the best. We have to do better.”
Play-in, playoff implications for Suns
The Pelicans didn’t in a game with many play-in implications.
The Suns not only moved up to seventh in the West and trail New Orleans by just a game for the sixth spot, they have the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Pelicans. The two teams will meet a third and final time Sunday in Phoenix during a four-game homestand for Suns, who have the toughest remaining schedule in the NBA.
Phoenix still has work to do to avoid the play-in but knows it can't afford any slipups. The problem is this team has had a history of struggling after big wins, as evidenced in this road trip.
The idea that the Suns can't seem to close out good teams has been an issue all season. The Suns keep saying the opponent junks or mucks the game up, but running a zone or trap shouldn't put a team in a bind as often as it has happened against them.
Hard to keep Zion Williamson down all game as 28 of his team-high 30 points came after the first quarter, with 20 coming in the second half. The Suns did the job in the first quarter with Nurkic playing right-on position defense when Williamson went to the rim, but as the game progressed, Phoenix's tight shell started showing cracks.
It's how the Pelicans wound up with 60 paint points and generated 24 free throw attempts. Defensively, as great of defender Herb Jones is, he's not the answer for Booker. Green made the adjustments in the third quarter when New Orleans climbed back into the game, but it's hard to come back from 24 down in the first quarter.
Both teams need Sunday's game. Green called out his team for its "soft" defense on Booker. See if that leads to a better effort against a player who more than has New Orleans' number.
Suns won the 50-50 balls, offensive boards
Phoenix averaged 100.6 points in its last three games before breaking loose against the Pelicans, who came into the game fifth in the NBA in defensive rating.
Booker said Green knows all of his tricks, but clearly Booker has data on Green's defense because he picked it apart once again. However, an underlying factor for Phoenix was extending possessions with offensive rebounds.
The Pelicans trailed by 11 early in the fourth before the Suns pushed their lead to 15 with Booker on the bench. Phoenix then had two straight possessions with two offensive rebounds on each one.
Nurkic and Beal each grabbed offensive boards that led to Beal to finding Royce O'Neale side to increase Phoenix's lead to 17 with 9:49 left. Then with Phoenix up 16 points, Nurkic and Beal each tracked down offensive boards again on a possession that Nurkic ended splitting two free throws to make the difference 17 with 8:13 left.
The Suns made crashing the boards a point of emphasis going into the game. Nurkic gathered up eight offensive rebounds and Beal corralled three from the guard position.
Phoenix ended the game with 16 offensive rebounds, six more than their season average. See if the Suns can continue trending upward in this area because is was a huge part of Monday's win.
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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