It was the Devin Booker show tonight in Minnesota, with the Suns All-Star guard exploding by 43 points, taking the Suns to their 22nd win of the season.
Phoenix made another change to the starting line-up, reinstating Franky Kaminsky in the line-up after starting Jae Crowder on Friday night against Chicago.
The Suns intend to continue to make these decisions based on confrontations and both Jae and Frank will have to be ready any night for whatever direction Monty Williams decides to take.
The Suns exchanged shots at the beginning against the Wolves, as it was a case of comings and goings in the first quarter. There was not much separation created by either team and it looked like Suns was about to become a sleepwalker in another game against smaller opponent.
Phoenix took a 30-26 lead in the second half thanks to a three-point retreat from Dario Saric to close the first half.
Devin Booker increased a notch in the second, scoring 14 points in the 2nd quarter – giving him 20 heads up for the break.
Deandre Ayton scored 8 points, 7 rebounds, 1 steal and 1 assist and played in the solid defense of Karl-Anthony Towns, limiting him to just 8 points in four shooting attempts, with three of those points coming out of the first shot of the game.
The turns were a big problem in the first half, as Suns committed 10 turns as a team and, as Kellan notes in the tweet below, eight different players contributed to the cause.
Eight different Suns players have a turnover at the end of time
– Kellan Olson (@KellanOlson) March 1, 2021
Going into the break, the Suns led by the score of 53-48, beating the Wolves by one point in the second quarter.
The Suns seemed much more stuck to start the third quarter on both sides of the court, with improved engagement jumping to a 9-point lead in the first minutes.
From that point on, recurring churn problems hit them and they went back to sleepwalking mode while the Wolves reduced the lead to 3, forcing Monty Williams to request a timeout.
Turnovers continued to hurt Phoenix and keep Minnesota alive, as they had five quick OTs in the first 6:30 of the quarter.
Chris Paul had 11 assists in his first 23 minutes, including this gem for Mikal Bridges for e-one.
Devin Booker was stuck again, losing 21 points in the third quarter to bring his game total to 41 points.
Devin Booker is just a score scorer.
41 points from 24 shots with 12 minutes remaining.
– Zone (@AZSportsZone) March 1, 2021
Jae Crowder had a difficult first three quarters, with 0-for-4 with 3 turnovers and 0 points in 17 minutes.
The supporting squad was out of a scoring perspective out of Deandre Ayton’s 12 points, he was the only double-digit Suns player in three quarters of the game.
Going into the fourth and final quarter, the Suns led 86-76.
Dario Saric started strong with a pair of threes to open the fourth and extend the Suns lead to 15.
At the start of the fourth period, the Suns really started to distance themselves, extending the lead to 17 after a pull-up by Chris Paul that led to the Minnesota timeout.
Paul and Saric prospered with Booker on the bench to start the fourth and last quarter.
The Suns beat Minnesota by 13 points in the second half and managed to clear the bench early on, after it looked like it could be a duel in the first 24 minutes.
Deandre Ayton had a tremendously defensive night at Towns and also scored 22 points and 10 rebounds on the 9/11 pitches.
Phoenix has the Lakers on TNT on Tuesday in a game against two Western heavyweights.
Devin Booker- 43 points, 5 assists, 5 rebounds, 1 block in 15/26 shots.
Next: @ Los Angeles Lakers (8 pm at TNT)