The Suns defeated Portland on Monday night at home, while Devin Booker defeated Damian Lillard and the Phoenix defense closed in to give the Suns their third consecutive victory, 132-100.
To begin with, Portland made the peculiar decision to let Lillard defend Booker, and definitely remembered when Brad Stevens put Carsen Edwards there to be chewed. Booker started with 4-5 on the field for eight points.
Defensively against Lillard, the Suns implanted Mikal Bridges, who did a good job from the start making life difficult for the MVP candidate. The Suns also bombarded Lillard at the perimeter, using the speed of Deandre Ayton’s foot to get the ball out of Lillard’s hands. Lillard missed three of his first five shots and coughed an early turn.
In the first timeout, Suns was high, 13-10.
Booker remained warm for the remainder of the first quarter, and the Suns needed every stitch. Even without CJ McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic, Portland’s attack is strong.
At the end of one, Booker made 17 points in 6-8 field shots.
When the first one finished, Robert Covington hit the bench grabbing his face after curling up on Dario Saric, then Lillard hit Cameron Johnson on his knees and fought up and down on the floor for a few moments.
Suns went up 32-26 after one.
The start of the second was a little ugly, with Lillard and Booker off the ground. Portland had a 7-0 run. That was when the Suns started to heat up their jumpers, culminating when Johnson hit a three with 4:34 remaining in the period that gave the Suns a six point lead and forced Terry Stotts to time out.
They lost several layups after the stoppage, but Booker responded in a big moment, reaching the basket for a -1 finish at the 2:22 mark that made the arena swing.
Booker also hit a baseline jumper at halftime to give him 22 at halftime.
Both teams drew at the start of the second half, drawing 11-11 in the period when Monty Williams asked for a timeout, 6:30 to go.
As usual, Ayton had a great third quarter. He hit the boards, fought hard against Enes Kanter under the ledge and even hit Kanter’s attempt to hit. In the past, stronger guys like Kanter could push Ayton. This no longer seems to be the case.
The game started to turn into an explosion at the end of the third. Whether it was because of Lillard’s early knee bump or because the Suns were simply better, Portland couldn’t keep up. Lillard fought deeply and accumulated more volumes than was normal for him, and no one else on the Trail Blazers held him. Carmelo Anthony was the only other double-digit Blazer going into the fourth period, while the team cooled deeply and failed to get anything from Gary Trent Jr.
On the other hand, Booker kept his foot on the gas and the trio did fall for the Suns.
With 1:14 to go, Lillard and Crowder collided, Crowder was called for a foul, so Anthony reacted to all this and was finally called for his own technical foul. Booker hit the technical free throw and the Suns maintained the advantage of 20 points.
This free throw spurred a run of nine points from the Suns in the final minute of the period, including a crazy run of three by Booker and a corner kick by Johnson. The minutes of just Booker without Paul continue to be incredible for Suns these days.
The fourth room included a sighting by Abdel Nader, a sighting by CJ Elleby and just too much Nassir Little. This is called trash time, folks. This means that the suns are rounding off.