Devin Booker bests Kevin Durant in clutch, Suns find their culture

PHOENIX — For a game that was decided by far more, a 102-99 Phoenix Suns win on Saturday over the Houston Rockets ultimately came down to their star being better than the other in the clutch.

It just so happened the two stars were former Suns and Team USA teammates Devin Booker and Kevin Durant.

Booker scored nine straight Suns points across a 9-2 Phoenix surge in the mid-fourth quarter for his squad to go up seven with 2:30 to go. He is really loving life with Oso Ighodaro healthy and back in the starting lineup. Peep the flipped re-screen by Ighodaro on the 3.

CLASSIC BOOK 4Q TAKEOVER 📚

Here’s every bucket from Book’s 9 point run to close out tonight’s W. https://t.co/czaCbC61TI

— Phoenix Suns (@Suns) November 8, 2026

The last Rockets shot before that spurt got underway was by Durant, who missed it. He missed two more while Booker entered takeover mode, a bad man sighting for the first time this season.

Durant got a baseline leaner to go with 47 seconds left to make it a three-point game, and after Booker nearly drained a ridiculous shot-clock buzzer-beating 3, Durant got a quality look (for him) on a 3 with 11 ticks remaining that didn’t go down. Houston surrendered from there, ball-watching instead of kicking off the foul game

This was our first full “Suns Basketball” experience of the year. While Phoenix still wasn’t great in a few key areas, this was a tough, physical and highly engaged effort. There is some delicious irony in this after Durant in the offseason took a jab at the Suns’ “culture” in response to a Mat Ishbia interview quote. That culture was present for the first time all night this season on Saturday.

“That was way better,” Ighodaro told Arizona Sports on if that felt like the team of last year. “Just our competitiveness, our execution was there. … It was a good all-together game.”

The Suns won through their defense. After spending most of the season ranked last in defensive efficiency, this was the team we remember from most of last year.

“In stretches, I thought that was some of our best defense of the year,” head coach Jordan Ott said.

“We’re playing desperate on the defensive end,” Dillon Brooks added. “Getting hands on loose balls, covering for each other, our pick-and-roll defense was really good, making ’em make decisions.”

This was tremendously encouraging, and should ease the worry for lots of Suns fans. That concern did not mount because the Suns were losing and getting outplayed. It was because of the way in which it was happening, losing because of a league-worst defense. So, this was the opposite effect. Even if Durant would have nailed those shots and the Rockets stole it late, this still would have been two giant steps forward on the season.

If we see more of that identity to wrap up the homestand, this thing will be right back on track after quite the uneven first two weeks.

Something crucial happened after the game in the postgame comments.

Booker, the top dog on the team, referred to this as a learning period for the Suns. He called this a “relatively new team,” something to fully absorb and not skim by after continuity was the big buzzword of the offseason.

“It’s important. We’re learning. We’re trying new lineups, and we’re in the ‘figuring it out’ stage right now, so anytime it can come with a win,” Booker said. “Obviously, we have stuff to learn from in this game, but it always feels better when we’re learning in a win.”

It’s time to reset those expectations in terms of what type of team we should be seeing at this point in the year. Not for the team to be better or worse. Instead, see this as a group still learning how to play with each other like Booker described. Strap in for a wavy ride until we see all the learning click together in place.

This victory provided Jalen Green and Brooks their first win against the team that traded them following a winless 0-4 rut with the matchup last year. It means a lot to them.

“Amazing. That’s been bothering me all summer,” Brooks on how that felt. “I want to keep it going, and I want to get back to beating them all the time.”

This was a different mix of the trends from the first two weeks of the season.

It was yet another great first quarter, with this one led by superior physicality on defense and efficient offense. Phoenix shot 76%, including 13-for-15 (87%) on 2s, to lead by a dozen. The ball and player movement punished a Houston defense that was a few steps slow off the ball to begin the game.

The Suns were stifling the rhythm of Alperen Sengun and Kevin Durant. Sengun had a lot of the offense run through him to begin the game, and Ighodaro held up well, with Sengun shooting 1-of-6. Suns defenders on Durant did not allow him to have space either dribbling the ball up or working around off-ball screens, severely limiting where he could get his touches. Most of the credit there goes to Brooks and Ryan Dunn.

All of that defensive shape was maintained in the second quarter, which Sengun spent on the bench for the last 10 minutes, before the Suns’ offense fell on its face. Phoenix committed seven turnovers in just over eight minutes. Two were by Ighodaro, who has to get used to where he’s seeing more pressure from on-ball defenders, and Green’s decision-making after a great first quarter went south fast. Houston’s stifled offense was able to run off giveaways and quick missed shots en route to a 20-3 run.

The Suns’ lead that grew as high as 19 was eliminated, and it was a tie game at halftime, thanks largely to a point total of 12 in the second quarter.

Defensive slippage made an appearance for the first time in the third quarter, when just a few minutes in, there were a handful of open 3s for the Rockets made possible by bad off-ball defense. This was the reemergence of a reoccurring issue from earlier losses and did not bode well for how the Suns were going to play in the second half.

Surprisingly, based on what we’ve come to know so far about this team in this season, that faded and the Suns got right back to it. They didn’t lose the plot after losing the lead, more growth from the type of efforts we saw earlier in the season.

“I think it’s a reference point for us with a relatively new team,” Booker said. “I said it the other day — I feel like we’ve lost every way possible, and now I think this is a good reference point to where if we start a game hot and a team brings it back, we still have life (and) there’s still another half of basketball left.”

More big minutes from the bench, this time led by Dunn and Khaman Maluach after Luke Kennard was the activation point in the first half, kept the Rockets at bay. It was a sneaky good Collin Gillespie game too in the margins.

As Maluach’s great shift and his best outing of the season was nearing its end, Sengun got a few buckets to finally go in a matchup he should have been dominating all game, a credit to Maluach. Sengun, Houston’s MVP two weeks in, then used that rhythm on Ighodaro too and it looked once more like the Suns were about to fade late.

The Turkish big, however, scored his last points to square it up at 95, right before Booker ripped off those seven straight unanswered.

The Rockets were without Steven Adams (right soleus strain) and Clint Capela (right ankle sprain), which for three straight contests has now had Houston mostly rely on small-ball when Sengun rests.

It’s why you could make the case that Maluach and Dunn won the game, winning the minutes when Houston was playing unorthodox lineups, and for Ighodaro forcing Sengun into Ime Udoka’s doghouse.

Maluach was +11 in 18 minutes with eight points, 10 rebounds, a steal and two blocks.

“Man Man grew up tonight,” Ott said of Maluach, complimenting the way he played through fatigue.

Dunn was +25 in 23 minutes with eight points, five rebounds, three assists and three steals. He has been one of the Suns’ three best players this season, their Jordan Goodwin to begin the year.

“Ryan, you can’t say enough about what he’s been doing on both sides of the ball,” Booker said. “Another guy where, I feel like he doesn’t know where his minutes have been, and just thrown in there and taking full advantage of it. He’s giving us a little bit of everything.”

Goodwin (right calf injury management) and Rasheer Fleming (left ankle sprain) remained out. Goodwin’s absence puts a lot of stress on the second unit, who the Suns already rely on a lot. Other guys could afford to have off-nights and still rely on Goodwin’s energy leading the charge, but without him, everyone has to be making an impact in some kind of way. Everyone was on Saturday.

Booker finished 10-of-24 for 24 points with two rebounds, three assists, four turnovers and three steals in 39 minutes.

Sengun was 5-of-16 for 15 points with six rebounds, five assists and two turnovers. Durant added 21 points (5-for-14), 10 rebounds, three assists and two turnovers.

Amen Thompson was arguably the best player on the floor. He made over a dozen plays that only he can make with his other-worldly athleticism. It’s incredible to watch live. Thompson racked up five offensive rebounds, four blocks and a steal to go with 17 points. In a great example of not relying on box scores or +/- to tell you who made the biggest impact, Thompson was a +1, the fifth-highest mark on Houston.

The Suns’ offense is going to be fighting uphill if the discrepancies in offensive rebounding and free throws don’t improve. It was 14-9 Houston on grabbing its own misses and 19-11 Rockets in free-throw attempts. On the year, the Suns have 89 offensive rebounds compared to 117 for their opponents, and they trail 230-166 in free-throw attempts.

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