Devin Booker’s 48-point double-double not enough for undermanned Suns

PHOENIX — Devin Booker is always going to have his doubters until the Phoenix Suns start winning, and even then, they probably will never truly go away.

After scoring 59 points on Monday and another 50 on Wednesday, both of those performances came in losing efforts, so the criticism came with it from those who chose to evaluate his outings in that manner.

Friday left little or no room for error to any of those cases anymore. Even if the Suns didn’t win.

Booker dropped 48 points against the Memphis Grizzlies in a 120-115 loss, a loss in which Booker took advantage of the extra attention and tried to set up his teammates as much as possible. He had 11 assists and should have had at least 15 if the Suns could have hit some open shots.

Booker was 19-of-29 from the field, somehow managing to play within the rhythm of the offense enough to keep his teammates involved despite the high volume.

Once again without Tyler Johnson, Kelly Oubre Jr. and T.J. Warren, the Suns also lost one center the day of the game and one during it.

In the fourth quarter of a close game, Phoenix desperately missed Deandre Ayton. The most recent No. 1 overall pick exited in the third quarter on an awkward-looking play that was labeled as a left ankle sprain by the Suns. He was ruled out the rest of the game after racking up 17 points and 13 rebounds in 27 minutes.

Suns head coach Igor Kokoskov offered no update postgame and Ayton did not speak with the media. He was seen on crutches in the locker room.

Because the Suns simply had no other option, Booker played the entire second half and he didn’t have the gas to score through double and triple teams in the fourth.

“We didn’t have enough and Booker at that point was a little tired,” Kokoskov said.

Booker more so was not looking to force it and trusted his teammates to score when he set them up. Sometimes they did, but they mostly didn’t, and the Suns’ poor defense left them no cushion to work with offensively.

Richaun Holmes was scratched from the game late due to a migraine, leaving Ayton as the only center. So matching up against a big, beefy 7-footer armed with soft touch like Jonas Valanciunas was a nightmare for Dragan Bender, the team’s starting power forward playing out of position at center for the 19 minutes Ayton was out.

The Lithuanian had 34 points and 20 rebounds, 11 of which came on the offensive glass.

Grizzlies point guard Mike Conley added 33 points as well.

“Those are two veteran players that have been in this league a very long time and it showed tonight,” Booker said of Conley and Valanciunas. “Something was working for them. They went right to their bread-and-butter every time and played through the mismatch.”

Those two players combined for 41 points in the second half and Valanciunas had 22 and 11 in those 24 minutes.

With the game just about out of hand at under two minutes left, Booker passed up multiple opportunities to try and score through two-plus defenders to reach 50 and instead made the easy pass.

The way in which Booker operated offensively spoke to eradicating that aforementioned theory of him essentially stat-padding.

After he got up to 14 points in the first seven minutes of the game, Booker was quick to oblige the rest of his team, with the offense running through Ayton a couple possessions in a row.

That was ginormous in the overall grand scheme of the game, as Ayton did not have a good start and allowed himself to get a feel for the floor by scoring six straight points. If Ayton didn’t go down, the Suns getting him rolling could have very well been the difference.

The opening 12 minutes had Booker outscore the Grizzlies 24-23, but instead of forcing the issue, Booker got his teammates involved early and often. He set up a handful of open looks, reaching four assists early in the second quarter.

That led to only four points for him in the second quarter and the assumption was he might flip on the game manager switch from there and score when the chance was open.

Instead, he got hot quickly again in the third, racking up another 14 to put him at 42 through three quarters.

The fourth is where he ran into trouble, only scoring six total points. A lack of energy and support from teammates were the issues.

In what has been the story for the Suns this season and for Booker himself since he reached a certain level at the beginning of his third season, there wasn’t enough help around the two-guard for Phoenix to win Friday. Injuries were a factor, but the Suns’ overall depth around the 22-year-old continues to be a question mark going forward. Yes, even if he can score 59, 50 and 48 over the course of three games in five days.

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