After going scoreless in the first half of Friday’s loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Devin Booker bounced back in a huge way for the Phoenix Suns in the first half against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Booker finished the half with 27 points on 9-of-14 shooting and 4-of-7 3-point shooting, five assists and three rebounds in 18 minutes, the most points he has scored in any half this season. The Suns (9-4), who had been blown out in two-straight game coming in, are leading Minnesota 64-54 without Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal (both out with left calf strains).
Without the two stars, Phoenix made a surprising starting lineup move, starting Mason Plumlee next to Jusuf Nurkić. The Suns played two bigs on the floor most of the first half, but it surprisingly didn’t really hurt the spacing. Booker found bigs on backdoor cuts multiple times and got good looks off screening actions, sometimes with the Suns using both bigs to screen on opposite sides of the floor on the same play.
Booker has also done a terrific job defensively against Anthony Edwards. The Timberwolves star only has four points on 2-of-5 shooting and two turnovers.
The Suns are shooting 25-for-41 (61%) as a team and 7-for-15 (46.7%) from 3. They do have 10 turnovers, but there has been a vast improvement on offense from the last two games.
They will look to carry over this hot shooting and clean up the turnovers in the second half.
Suns make unexpected starting lineup change against Timberwolves
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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
