Suns Notes: Booker, Durant, Ayton, Landale, Warren

With Chris Paul unavailable for Game 3 of the Suns‘ second round series vs. Denver, stars Devin Booker and Kevin Durant were asked to carry even more of the offensive load on Friday — it’s hard to imagine how they could have responded any better to that task.

As Tim MacMahon of ESPN.com writes, only five pairs of teammates in NBA history have combined to score more points in a single playoff game than the 86 Booker and Durant racked up last night. While Durant needed 31 shots from the floor to score his 39 points, Booker poured in a hyper-efficient 47 on just 25 field goals and two free throws.

“He doesn’t run from the tough stuff,” head coach Monty Williams said of his star guard. “I just think it’s his makeup. He understands not having Chris puts more on his plate, but I don’t think he forced it the way that you would think. I think he allowed the game to happen naturally and then when there were opportunities for him to push the issue. He was pretty efficient.”

Durant, who has only been a Sun since February, told reporters after Friday’s win that his co-star’s performance came as no surprise to him, suggesting that these sort of superstar performances are what he expected from Booker when he arrived in Phoenix.

“He’s just a leader of this team, this organization,” Durant said. “He brings it every single day. We just follow his imprint, and we rally around him.”

Here’s more on the Suns:

• Booker has a tendency to frequently revisit his own past, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst notes within a profile of the Suns’ star, which has made him all the more appreciative of the team’s present opportunity to fight for a championship. Phoenix didn’t win more than 24 games in a season until Booker’s fifth year in the NBA. “Just being from a young team to an established team now is just something totally different. But I wouldn’t change my journey for anybody else’s,” he said ahead of the second round. “… It’s tough taking them Ls early on. But I think I got to develop my game, and I had people that believed in me, the organization that believed in me and I just took it from there.”
• While Booker and Durant came up big in Game 3, it was a disappointing night for big man Deandre Ayton, who had as many fouls as points (four) and was benched in favor of Jock Landale in crunch time. Ayton – whose 2021/22 season ended with a benching – was “visibly upset” when he was removed from the game with just under five minutes remaining, but he energetically supported Landale and his teammate down the stretch, writes Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic. Although Ayton didn’t speak to the media after the win, Durant told reporters that he expects the center to have a big Game 4, Rankin adds.
• The Suns’ reserves stepped up in a major way on Friday, writes Greg Moore of The Arizona Republic. After getting just four bench points in Game 2, Phoenix bumped that number to 22 in Game 5, with Landale and T.J. Warren giving the team a spark. Making his first appearance of the series, Warren logged 26 minutes of action and the Suns outscored Denver by 20 points while he was on the court.