Suns SG Devin Booker to set NBA record for most points in 1st playoffs

Devin Booker will not look at a 42-point NBA Finals performance Wednesday with a rosy lens.

Game 4 went the Milwaukee Bucks’ way to tie the series against Booker’s Phoenix Suns at 2-2. At least two more games will be played, and that’s where Booker can build on his already historic playoff run.

The 24-year-old has already scored the most points of any NBA player in their first playoff appearance.

Booker now has 542 postseason points in 20 games, which on Wednesday surpassed Rick Barry (521 points, 15 games) and Julius Erving (518 points, 19 games).

He did not care for propping himself up following the big individual scoring night.

“It doesn’t matter at all,” Booker said in Milwaukee after the Bucks won, 109-103. “I said that after last game, too, when I struggled shooting it. The main objective is to win the game. So anything that goes on throughout the game, it doesn’t matter, for real.”

The good news for Phoenix is Booker appeared refreshed in Game 4 after he scored 10 points on 3-of-14 shooting during a Game 3 blowout loss in which he only played 29 minutes.

Booker went 17-of-28 from the field on Wednesday.

He used the two full days off from game action well and appeared in 39 minutes Wednesday, when foul trouble — he finished with five fouls — bit him more than anything.

“It’s the pop in his step when he’s going through his shooting and our strength coach Cory [Schlesinger] was putting him through some stuff,” Suns coach Monty Williams said. “I watched that today, and he was moving really well. So when he’s moving like that and has his pop, you expect him to get by people and pull up on the dime for a shot.

“He was curling, getting to the basket, when he can stop on a dime and get guys up in the air, he has his legs underneath him. It’s just something I see in the shootaround when he’s working out, I can tell he’s got his legs.”

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