Devin Booker attempts to silence alarm bells with 43 points in messy Suns win

PHOENIX — The NBA can be funny, because the Phoenix Suns were somehow as close to a must-win game No. 2 of the season as I can remember.

Saturday’s 131-122 final against the Golden State Warriors was indeed a win, but it was nowhere in the galaxy of the type of effort to quell worries following a 41-point disaster of a loss in the season opener versus the Portland Trail Blazers.

Even without Oso Ighodaro (right oblique strain), a response was required, especially considering the team they were facing.

The Warriors came into Saturday already attempting to overcome the long-term absences of Jimmy Butler (right ACL surgery), Kristaps Porzingis (not with team) and Moses Moody (left leg surgery). But because of how old they are, they’ll need to manage the likes of Stephen Curry and Draymond Green on nights like this when it is the third game in four days.

Both of them were out, as were Al Horford (low back injury management) and Brandin Podziemski (low back injury management).

In summation, Golden State was missing six of its best seven players, with rookie first-round pick Yaxel Lendeborg serving as the lone holdover.

On top of a Suns victory, this needed to be clean and decisive as well.

Instead, it was a grind. An ugly and messy grind.

“We still have some things to clean up,” Devin Booker said. “Obviously, any win in this league you don’t take lightly. … It’s definitely a win that we needed.”

Before we get to that, the grind was led by Booker, who shot 17 of 25 for 43 points with seven rebounds, seven assists and four turnovers.

Booker worked his ass off inside the 3-point line through pretty great individual defense to remain efficient on midrange jumpers in the first half. The Warriors were not sending full help his way, nor double-teams, so he was relying on those middies over strong contests.

This was fine to some extent. It was also Booker looking to strictly score almost every possession. Fans have been crying out for this type of mentality, and while they’re correct in their desires, Booker, in some semi-impossible way, has to balance both that and churning ball movement as a playmaker.

There was almost none of it as a team that was clicking in the first half, and to no fault of Booker; that’s going to be on him to prevent. There was zero downhill juice provided by anyone else.

Booker kept cooking in the third quarter, and Golden State decided to be more direct with the extra attention from help defenders. It’s a tough call for an opposing coach to make and why they get paid the big bucks, but this was an easy runway for Booker to take into the Suns generating easily their best ball movement of the night.

Booker scored 17 of his 43 points in the third quarter, and even then, the stink of Phoenix’s team play was rancid enough to keep the Warriors in it.

The first time the Suns created real separation was in the mid-third quarter when they jumped to a 10-point lead.

Golden State scored the next dozen points.

Booker’s push got it back up to a double-digit lead, and when he rested to open the final frame, the Suns kept it in a decent enough spot before a Collin Gillespie nutmeg halfway through the quarter was the back-breaker.

Collin with the nutmeg 🫢 https://t.co/St8VTIodcz

— Phoenix Suns (@Suns) October 25, 2026

There is absolutely a version of this game the Suns lose, and they likely do on a pedestrian evening from Booker.

The new starting lineup is now -25 in 25 minutes.

A -21 of that is from the Portland loss, but you could argue going -4 in 13 minutes against these assembled Warriors misfits is just as bad.

The off-ball defense from these starters is abhorrent. Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks have always had bad habits in this area, with Booker at times joining into the foray. This is the only place where Miles Bridges has been a seamless fit. He’s an absolute mess in a helping position. And Khaman Maluach’s raw attributes stick out here the most, where he will almost always be either a few inches or feet out of position as an anchor.

A few different times, Booker was either attempting to reason with those guys whenever those slip-ups occurred or was just getting outright pissed off on his own at them.

“Just communication. Getting on the same page. I think that tandem between the two players on the back side, that relationship is really important,” Booker said of the off-ball defense, noting how a few of those goofs were on the strong-side corner, a huge “no-no” as Booker called it.

“The more we’ll talk, the better we’ll be,” Booker later added.

There were dozens, and by dozens, I mean DOZENS of terrible misplays by the Suns, a lot of which can be attributed to effort and engagement. Whether it was on those defensive rotations, giving up an offensive rebound, turning over an inbounds pass, making the wrong decision with the ball or whatever else I missed, these were so frequent that there’s no way those alarmed by Wednesday lowered their levels of worry following Saturday.

With all due respect to the rest of the Warriors who played with great spirit, it was the likes of Graham Ike, Georges Niang, Charles Bassey and other misfits most NBA fans wouldn’t know that were forcing the Suns into these mistakes. Bassey at one point blocked Booker at the rim, stared him down and then still beat everyone down the floor to put back a missed 3.

Second-chance points were 26-9 in the Warriors’ favor off a 19-9 edge in offensive rebounds. Those types of numbers are the Suns’ basketball identity developing a personality disorder.

Head coach Jordan Ott, Booker and Gillespie all brought up rebounding when asked about the biggest concern through two games. Correct.

“Once you have a reputation where teams can get offensive rebounds, everyone’s gonna start crashing on us,” Booker said.

The defense is also in a horrible spot. Remember, even with some drop-off in the last two months of the season, the Suns were still a top-10 team in defense last year. They need to be good on that end again to have any chance at success this season. The connectivity is awful, and Ighodaro can’t come back sooner in that regard.

If the Suns play anywhere close to this level on Monday in Oklahoma City, the game will be over at halftime.

Without Ighodaro, the Suns used a lot of small-ball, something a lot easier to do against a small Warriors team. Backup center Duop Reath only played three minutes, all in the first half, while Khaman Maluach logged 28.

Maluach’s hands continue to be a major problem. In the first quarter alone, he was stripped after getting an offensive rebound, bobbled a bounce pass at the basket, was stripped after getting a defensive rebound and bobbled a pitch-and-catch action with a perimeter player. The last one is fine. The other three easily could have been four points for the Suns, and the strip on the other end resulted in an immediate layup for Golden State. That’s a six-point swing simply because he can’t handle the ball.

It’s not time for any major takes. Two real games are only enough to develop a first impression. The first impression, however, is that he’s nowhere close to being ready enough for the role.

Gillespie contributed 11 points, four rebounds and nine assists in 28 minutes. He played more than Green (26), which it appears is now something to watch for going forward. Gillespie is right alongside Booker as the two reasons why this wasn’t just as ugly of a night as Wednesday.

On the nutmeg, Gillespie said it was his first in a game since high school.

He played for five full years at Villanova, so he really never got it off there?

“No. Coach (Jay) Wright would have killed me,” Gillespie said with a deadpan delivery to Arizona Sports.

Luke Kennard made his debut and made three 3-pointers toward 11 points in 18 minutes. Unsurprisingly, the offense flowed the best when he shared the floor with Gillespie as the two best shooters on the team.

Lendeborg was wildly impressive with 26 points, nine rebounds, five assists and two turnovers. That few of giveaways while he spent a lot of the game bringing the ball up as a 6-foot-9 point forward was a legitimate feat. The Warriors are right about already thinking he’s the face of the franchise once the Steph era is complete. What jumped out the most was how easily correctible all his rookie mistakes are. He’s going to get better fast as a real two-way star, so long as his (let’s call it) unique personality doesn’t get in the way.

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