Devin Booker went absolutely off against the New Orleans Pelicans (25-18) tonight, scoring 52 points to help the Phoenix Suns (23-18) cruise to a 123-109 road victory, their fourth straight win.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!While Booker might have been killing it on the offensive end, the entire Suns’ team stepped up defensively. Kevin Durant, who finished with 26 points of his own, led the charge once again on the defensive side, totaling two steals and two blocks. Phoenix decided to start with Bradley Beal on Zion Williamson, an interesting choice to say the least, but it ended up throwing off Williamson’s rhythm just enough.
“I thought Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant set a great tone for us defensively,” Suns’ coach Frank Vogel said in his postgame press conference. “KD on the Brandon Ingram matchup, and we asked Bradley Beal to be the first line of defense on Zion. He guarded him, but it was a team effort. (Jusuf Nurkić) was really good at the basket as well.”
Nurkić ended the night with 15 rebounds, his fourth consecutive game with 12 or more rebounds.
“Nurk had a great game,” Vogel said. “I mean, you can’t get guard this team, Zion Williamson, without having a big body in front of the rim most of the night, and Nurk did a great job with that.”
After garnering a lot of praise from everybody after his defense in the Suns’ 22-point fourth quarter comeback win over the Kings Tuesday, Kevin Durant carried that over tonight.
“KD’s competitive spirit the last four or five games has just been off the charts,” Vogel said. “We saw it again tonight, just really battling Brandon Ingram and limiting him the best that we could.”
Ingram finished with 17 points on 5-of-11 shooting.
Vogel also credited Josh Okogie and Eric Gordon’s defensive effort off the bench. Gordon finished with two steals.
Another great individual performance was by Grayson Allen, who continued his strong play on both ends, ending with two steals of his own.
Bradley Beal on guarding Zion Williamson
Beal, who had 13 points, seven rebounds and five assists, explained how guarding Williamson came about.
“(Coach) came up to me yesterday in practice before we even left for New Orleans, and he was like, ‘Do you want to you want to guard BI or you want to guard Zion?'” Beal said on the Suns’ postgame show. “(Those) were kind of the two matchups. We wanted to keep length on BI, so we kept KD on him, and he said it was either gonna be me or Grayson on Zion. So I took the bear of the physicality tonight.”
Beal further described his approach to guarding Williamson, who finished with 24 points, but only three rebounds.
“It’s all about staying in front of him,” Beal said. “He’s a straight-line driver. He’s a force once he gets to his launching pad. The biggest thing I’m trying to do is keep him from getting to that launching pad, keep him from getting to that two-foot gather. I just tried to keep him on the perimeter as much as possible, be physical with him, stab at the ball, just be handsy as much as possible, take charges. Whatever it was, just throw him off. He’s their guy, so they’re gonna continue to give it to him from start to finish, hot and cold. He’s gonna get the ball, and I’m just happy that we had good help. Everybody was loaded up, and we made it tough on him.”
3-Point defense
The Pelicans entered tonight shooting at a 38.7% clip from 3-point range, good for third in the NBA. The Suns were allowing teams to shoot 36.9% from 3 against them, which ranked 18th in the league. New Orleans was also coming off a game in which they set a franchise record with 25 threes against the Hornets Wednesday.
Yet tonight, New Orleans only connected on 10-of-42 shots from deep, a staggering 23.8%. This was the fourth-lowest percentage from deep the Suns have allowed this season.
“They didn’t shoot as well tonight as they did the other night,” Vogel said. “Our guys really committed to taking away the paint first, and then multiple effort flying through shooters. You got to do both with this team. They’re one of the best in the league at hurting you both ways, attacking the rim, and if you overcommit, they’re bombing threes. (They’re) third in the league in 3-point field goal percentage. Credit to our guys for the multiple effort possessions that we had, but they did miss some open ones as well.”
Sustaining defense
Even though the Suns came back from down 22 in the fourth quarter thanks in large part to their defense against the Kings, Vogel recognized that was only for a short spurt. Tonight, they came out of the gates with that effort.
“I was happy with the 48 minutes of defense (tonight),” Vogel said. “We had a great fourth quarter last game against Sacramento, but we did not start the game well defensively. In fact, we started very poorly. It was a challenge to play a 48-minute game and have a better defensive disposition. We started the game with great energy on that side of the ball.”
Beal felt the same way about the Suns’ defense.
“We’re starting to click offensively but our defense isn’t there. It’s not where we need it to be,” Beal said. “I knew in that Sacramento game we definitely took a step back in that first quarter, first half, and how we guarded the fourth quarter is how we came out tonight and guarded New Orleans with that same intensity and energy. If we have that every night, man, we’re gonna be a very, very tough team to deal with, but we got to understand that sacrifice on the defensive end is what’s going to propel us on offense.”
So was this the Suns’ best 48-minute defensive performance of the entire season?
“I think so,” Vogel said. “We’ve had some good performances, but I think from start to finish, for 48 minutes, guys were really locked in.”
Devin Booker Dominates with 52 Points as Suns Cruise to Blowout Victory Against Pelicans
*Get the BEST Phoenix sports insider information, exclusive content, and access to our seasonal magazines! SIGN UP HERE to unlock our premium content!*
Brendan Mau is a senior writer covering the Phoenix Suns and more for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on X via @Brendan_Mau
