Devin Booker has made winning plays outside of scoring throughout his NBA career, but he’s most known for short circuiting stat sheets with pull-up jumpers, transition 3s and paint attacks.
Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker (1) is fouled by Golden State Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga (00) during the first half of an NBA basketball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Jeff Chiu, AP
Phoenix Suns forward Kevin Durant, top, fouls Golden State Warriors guard Chris Paul during the first half of an NBA basketball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Jeff Chiu, AP
Phoenix Suns forward Kevin Durant, right, drives to the basket against Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson during the first half of an NBA basketball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Jeff Chiu, AP
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) is defended by Phoenix Suns forward Josh Okogie during the first half of an NBA basketball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Jeff Chiu, AP
Phoenix Suns forward Yuta Watanabe looks to shoot during the first half of the team’s NBA basketball game against the Golden State Warriors in San Francisco, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Jeff Chiu, AP
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry gestures after making a 3-point basket against the Phoenix Suns during the first half of an NBA basketball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Jeff Chiu, AP
Phoenix Suns forward Josh Okogie (2) reacts after scoring against and being fouled by the Golden State Warriors during the first half of an NBA basketball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Jeff Chiu, AP
Golden State Warriors guard Gary Payton II (0) shoots against Phoenix Suns forward Drew Eubanks during the first half of an NBA basketball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Jeff Chiu, AP
He’s just in a new role of playing point guard after the Phoenix Suns traded traditional one Chris Paul to Washington and got another high-level scorer in Bradley Beal in return.
Booker started this season doing what he does best in scoring a game-high 32 points in Tuesday’s 108-104 win at Golden State, but he made a different statement with three climactic assists that led to eight points late in the road win at Chase Center in San Francisco.
“It’s a good start to the new phase of his career, where he’s going to be the primary ball handler, where he’s really embraced taking the leadership role on this team,” Suns coach Frank Vogel said. “Playing more traditional point guard where he can, where he’s a threat to go into kill mode at any point, and he has the savvy at reading defenses where he can pick them apart with a pass.”
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Booker found Josh Okogie and Eric Gordon for 3s late in the fourth quarter and Jusuf Nurkic off a screen-and-roll that put Phoenix ahead by the final margin of victory with 10.3 seconds left in the game.
“Just trust building with this team,” Booker said.
Booker finished the game with eight assists and six rebounds – with a sore big left toe that had him listed as questionable for the opener.
“When you’re out there and on the bench, you sort of know what he’s about to do and what he’s going to try to get to and the moves he’s going to try to get to,” said Paul, who played Tuesday against Booker after sharing the Suns backcourt with him the previous three years.
Now the Suns (1-0) will look to build off that win Thursday at Crypto.com Arena against the Los Angeles Lakers (0-1), who lost their season opener Tuesday at defending NBA champion Denver.
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“It’s a lot of teams that’s going to have to deal with each other in order to get to the promised land,” said Lakers coach Darvin Ham before the Suns beat them in last week’s preseason finale.
The Suns will likely have to go Thursday without Booker and Bradley Beal as both are listed as doubtful. Beal is still being diagnosed with low back tightness as he missed Tuesday’s game while Booker is now listed as having left foot soreness.
Phoenix won its final preseason game over the Lakers, 123-100, at Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert without Booker and Beal as Durant and James faced each other for the first time since Christmas 2018 when Durant was with the Warriors.
Durant scored 21 points as he only played the first half while James had 19 points in 22 minutes.
So Thursday’s game will be the first meeting in the regular season since that Christmas game at Golden State. As entertaining as that matchup is, the Anthony Davis-Nurkic matchup may prove to be the more important one.
The Suns acquired Nurkic from Portland in a three-team trade a week before training camp that saw Damian Lillard land in Milwaukee and Deandre Ayton go to the Blazers.
Nurkic is viewed by the Suns as a better fit than Ayton with their new-look roster. He posted a double-double of 14 points and 14 rebounds in Tuesday’s win, but also committed five fouls and found himself having to check Paul on the perimeter and gave up drives to the lane.
“It’s a nightmare, honestly, and you’re asking your bigs to be up when Steph (Curry) or Klay (Thompson) comes off any screens,” said Vogel when asked how backup big Drew Eubanks and Nurkic defended the Warriors. “The only thing I would say is we didn’t protect him on the backside enough and when he was up, they made the pocket pass, we didn’t make enough plays from our low man, but those guys did their job at a high level.”
Now Nurkic will match up against Davis, who dominated the matchup in the preseason finale.
Davis went for 15 points and six blocks with three rejections in the first half coming against Nurkic, who only scored three points on 1-of-11 shooting, grabbed eight boards and committed five fouls.
“I thought Nurk competed, but when you’re asking any player on your team to guard the other team’s arguably best player, they’re going to exude a lot of energy on the defensive side of the ball,” Vogel said after the preseason game. “I always have a lower expectation level of what they’re going to give offensively.”
Nurkic played 19 minutes while Davis saw 23 minutes of action.
“AD is one of the best defensive centers in the league and they’re playing with good size and they’re swarming in there,” continued Vogel as he coached Davis for three seasons with the Lakers. “There’s some things we can do there to put Nurkic in better offensive positions. We’re going to play through our perimeter guys a lot so a lot of times, he’s just going to be the recipient of that type of action, but I was happy with how he competed on the defensive side of the ball.”
Nurkic will now have another opportunity to compete against the talented Davis.
Okogie took on the challenge Tuesday of guarding Curry and was able to produce on the offensive end in scoring 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting.
“I take it personal when I go out there and I have an assignment like that, you know,” Okogie said. “Just to make sure he doesn’t have a historic game.”
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Curry finished with 27 points, going just 4-of-14 from 3.
“You know there’s only so much you can do with a guy like him but just to make sure he has human-like numbers, that’s my goal.”
Okogie’s only 3 of the game off Booker’s assist gave the Suns a 103-99 lead with 1:09 remaining.
“I’m a big fan of his game as I’ve said many times, and he played it as well as anybody on the floor,” Vogel said after Tuesday’s game. “He’s guarding Steph Curry basically every minute that he’s out there, chasing him around, using a lot of energy there and still finds his way with his cuts, crashes and drives to impact the game offensively which is not always the case when you got to chase a guy like Steph.”
Okogie goes from trying to keep up with the always moving Curry to defending the freight train James, who he guarded in that final preseason game. Okogie managed six points in 23 minutes of that game.
