Devin Booker’s stats in the Suns-Clippers series are insane

In case you were living under a rock, Devin Booker is playing very good basketball through the first round of the NBA postseason.

Only playoff-push Jimmy Butler for the Miami Heat has a decent case over Booker as the best player league-wide so far during these playoffs.

Booker in a five-game series victory against the Los Angeles Clippers averaged 37.2 points, 5.0 rebounds, 6.4 assists, 2.6 steals and 1.0 blocks per game. He shot 60.2% with 46.7% from three.

He leads the NBA postseason so far in points (186) and steals (13), while he’s second in minutes played (216), behind teammate Kevin Durant.

To wrap your heads around how white-hot Booker has been, in so many facets, too, here’s a rundown of just a few of his statistics from a historical perspective.

1, Part I

Booker is the only player with 45 or more points and 10 or more assists in a series-clinching win in NBA history, per ESPN Stats & Info.

1, Part II

The Suns star is the first guard in NBA playoff history to average 35 points on 60% accuracy over any five-game span, according to Stathead.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Elgin Baylor, Bernard King, Kawhi Leonard, George Mikan and Shaquille O’Neal are among the bigs who’ve done it.

2, Part I

The duo of Booker and Durant became only the second pair of teammates to hit 25 or more points in every game of a best-of-seven playoff series. The others? Baylor and Jerry West for the 1968 Los Angeles Lakers, per ESPN Stats & Info.

The five-game streak of 25-plus for the Suns’ pair ties for the longest in NBA history with the Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.

2, Part II

As of Wednesday Booker, is second in shots contested at 23.2 per game. While tracking data should be taken with a grain of salt, it’s an incredible feat for a guard to hold that ranking even in a small sample size.

That is only behind center Brook Lopez and ahead of, in order, a group of big men: Kevon Looney, Ivica Zubac, Evan Mobley, Draymond Green, Rudy Gobert, Nikola Jokic and Anthony Davis.

It’s a testament to the burden Booker carried as Russell Westbrook’s primary defender. And the results aren’t just about volume. Booker has a defensive field goal percentage of 37.1% allowed to opponents he’s contested, per NBA.com’s tracking data.

3

Since 1997, Booker is only the third player to hit the 25-point mark in a single playoff quarter.

His Tuesday third quarter in the closeout game allowed him to join the Philadelphia 76ers’ Allen Iverson during his 2001 NBA Finals run. Iverson poured in 26 during a fourth-quarter rally in a loss to the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard posted a 25-point third quarter in a 2019 loss against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

6

With six 40-plus point games — two of which came in this first-round series — Booker surpassed Charles Barkley for most 40-plus-point games in playoff history. For perspective, Michael Jordan leads the charge with 38 such games, with LeBron James in a distant second with 28. It falls off quickly.

Only 10 players have hit double-digits in their careers, making Booker’s trek to six at age 26 all the more impressive. The guys with seven that he could catch soon: Butler, Stephen Curry, Westbrook, Dwyane Wade, Dirk Nowitzki and King.

Booker also now holds sole possession of first in Suns franchise history with 17 games of 30 or more points.

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