Suns hold ground to beat Bucks despite 47 from Giannis Antetokounmpo

PHOENIX — Giannis Antetokounmpo’s 20-foot jumper found only metal as time ran out.

It was an ugly end to a night that was almost a damn banger for the MVP winner two years running.

Antetokounmpo’s 47 points, 11 rebounds and five assists to that point had been spectacular. But in the end, it was the Bucks’ turnover on a seat-pull by the Phoenix Suns’ Jae Crowder and Antetokounmpo’s missed shot over the outstretched arms of a paint-based Deandre Ayton that sealed a 125-124 Phoenix victory Wednesday night at Phoenix Suns Arena.

“I don’t think it was an easy 47. He had to work for it. I thought our guys battled,” Suns coach Monty Williams said.

It maybe wasn’t that the Suns had weakened the Greek Freak as the game wore on. His 23 shots and 21 free throws appeared to come with ease. So Williams wouldn’t go that far.

“When a guy’s going like that, one thing I’ve noticed in my time, when a guy has the ball that much, like, other guys don’t touch it,” Williams said. “They may not have a good feel for the ball, I don’t know.

“All I know is we made him work, you know? And that’s all you can do. And when we needed to get stops against him, we got stops.”

The Suns (15-9) won their seventh game in their last eight by surviving all that, plus a first-half three-point barrage by the league’s third-best three-point shooting team.

Milwaukee went 13-of-24 from deep in the first half with guard Bryn Forbes, playing in place of starter Jrue Holiday, nailing five.

The Suns clamped down in the second half by bodying Forbes in transition to keep him from popping loose on pin-downs, and the Bucks went 3-for-13 from three-point range after the break.

Antetokounmpo stepped in from there.

The third quarter saw him sideline Ayton with foul trouble and score 14 points with the much smaller Crowder tagging him defensively. Antetokounmpo added 16 in the fourth.

“Our defense was decent,” said Suns point guard Chris Paul, who returned from a one-game absence due to a hamstring injury. “It was just go-go gadget arms at the rim.”

So the Suns succeeded by keeping those arms out of the lane.

What did Booker think of the final play?

“That we’re in good shape,” he said. “Anytime you can stay in front of him and force him to take shots like that, you can live with it.

“Obviously, he’s a force in the paint area and gave us troubles all night, but if we keep him out of there — and Deandre did a good job of cutting him off and forcing him into that shot — we’ll live with the result.”

Ayton and Antetokounmpo traded blows early on and each had 10 points by the time they exited more than eight minutes into the game. Their teams were deadlocked at 32 points each by the end of the first quarter.

Phoenix shot 64% in the first quarter but allowed Milwaukee to keep pace with six three-point makes, complementing Antetokounmpo’s driving.

The barrage continued in the second quarter, but the Suns’ offensive execution did not.

During the period, Phoenix turned the ball over six times leading to seven points. The Bucks also tallied eight fastbreak points.

Forbes caught fire. During the Bucks’ lead-stretching that reached 16 points in the second quarter, Forbes came off a screen in front of the Suns’ bench — Williams was standing a few feet on the court, pointing at the wide open Buck, closer than any of his players to Forbes before the guard knocked another three down.

Milwaukee held a 71-59 halftime lead, but then Antetokounmpo did everything he could to put Phoenix away.

Yet the Suns were in a good mental space at halftime. They went on an 11-2 push to close a foul-heavy third quarter as Booker scored 11 of his 30 on the night.

Phoenix trailed 101-98 heading into the fourth and opened the final stanza by hitting three straight three-pointers to bump that run to 20-2, taking a 107-101 lead with 10 minutes to play.

Its closers took over from there.

Booker scored five points and missed a few more good looks in the fourth, plus a late free throw that with 32 seconds left would have put Phoenix up by two.

“Outside of missing a free throw, I think we played well down the stretch,” Booker said.

Paul, who scored 28 points to go with eight assists, scored 10 fourth-quarter points. Like Booker, he missed a few pretty open looks himself that he kicked himself for afterwards.

“We’re finally starting to get what we want, making sure we at least get what we want down the stretch,” Paul said of the backcourt tandem. “I think we’re learning how to play well of each other.”

Offensively, the Suns evened things up by the end of the night, finishing with 15 threes — one shy of the Bucks — on 48% accuracy. Defensively, they gang-rebounded and got stops behind a huge frontcourt effort from Crowder (14 rebounds), Frank Kaminsky (14 points, eight rebounds, eight assists) and Ayton (17 points, seven rebounds).

The young team’s winning plays included Crowder’s savvy chair-pull.

Then came Ayton holding his ground on the final Antetokounmpo attempt.

“D.A., he got in foul trouble but the main thing for me was he didn’t lose his head, and so we were able to put him back in at the end, and he was guarding (center) Brook (Lopez),” Williams said, noting the Suns switched Ayton back on Antetokounmpo for the final play.

“He gave a great contest. For all the stuff that’s said about D.A., this kid, he’s got so much ability and he’s using it.”

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