An NBA season is a six-month test of strength. No matter where your team lands in the standings, there will be constant challenges. In order to maintain sanity, a season needs bright spots. For the Suns, their shining moment came in the form of a 70-point outburst from second-year star Devin Booker on Friday night.
Indeed, the Celtics won the game, but Booker won the crowd. He finished 21 of 40 from the field, 4 of 11 from the 3-point line and 24 of 26 from the free-throw line. Hardened Celtics fans cheered all the buckets, much to the derision of Jae Crowder and other Celtics. As annoyed as Celtics players were after the game, the Suns still take pride in the moment.
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Suns coach Earl Watson played with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook in Oklahoma City. Watson was a tough player, one who has competed against some of the best the league had to offer. He believes Booker can stack up against any of the greats if continues to work hard.
"Book went into the Boston Garden against a good team and gave them buckets," Watson said. "We play to the end. He wasn’t scoring to stat chase. We needed those points. We have a depleted roster and he’s one of our best players. We teach our kids to play all the way to the end."
A night to remember.
— NBA (@NBA) March 25, 2017
Every bucket from Devin Booker's 70 POINT NIGHT!#WeArePHX pic.twitter.com/d4hhQZes0B
Watson traced the performance back to a practice drill the team runs. The drill is called 95-95, and it’s designed to give the Suns a feel of what it takes to win in close games. Each team is given two timeouts, and the players draw up and execute specific sets.
"That night went back to what we teach in practice — we didn’t give up. That’s how I played, that is how I coach. I learned from John Wooden," said Watson, who played at UCLA from 1997 to 2001. "He wouldn’t allow me to disrespect the game. The first time we played the Celtics it wasn’t decided until the last few seconds.
"You saw the Kings' comeback (Sunday against the Clippers). It can always happen. I teach my guys to believe in themselves no matter how it looks."
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Watson is confident that the team will be better off in the long run because of how they handle losses.
"Yeah, they took a picture celebrating Booker," Watson said. "Just because we’re not winning a lot of games doesn’t mean we can’t compete. We’re always going to fight and we don’t have a tougher guy than Booker. Don’t let his smooth face fool ya."
Longtime NBA veteran and teammate Tyson Chandler noticed the fire in Booker immediately. In their first pickup game in the offseason, there was a possession where the ball went out of bounds, and Chandler explained the proper way for him to run action off a pin-down. When Booker picked up it up perfectly on the next play, Chandler beamed.
"I told our GM right then that he was the best player on the team and was going to be great," Chandler said. "I decided then that we needed to protect him at all costs."
Booker has jumped from 13.8 points per game as a rookie to 21.6 in his sophomore campaign as the focal point in the Phoenix offense (his usage percentage has increased more than five percent from last year). He could still be more consistent on a nightly basis, though it's easy to forget he's only 20 years old.
But like Watson said, don't let that "smooth face" fool you. Chandler noticed Booker was in more conflicts than the average player, and he stayed ready to step up on his behalf.
"At first I thought it was because he was light-skinned. And it is, but he’s also a s— talker," Chandler said. "I would look at the tape and there he is under his breath talking tough. He’s gonna catch flack because he’s an old, Rico Suave-looking dude, but when he starts putting up those shots, they get quiet.
"I still jump in, but I’m also a little slower because he needs to assert his own manhood. I won’t always be around."
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Booker laughed when asked about his trash talking.
"I don’t start it, but I finish it. They give me grief for being light-skinned, then I give 'em the blues with these buckets," said Booker, the son of Melvin Booker, who is African-American and a former NBA player, and Victoria Gutiérrez, a Mexican-American who primarily raised him during Melvin's playing days.
"I try to let my game do the talking, but I’m always ready with the with the comeback. Some of these dudes assume because my pops played and I'm light that I'm soft and I'm here to let 'em know that I'm not. I try to laugh it off when I can."
He didn’t find Crowder’s IG shade so funny, though.
"I felt disrespected by it because we weren’t trying to show them up," Booker said. "I was trying to win and I was hot. What else am I supposed to do? I don’t and won’t roll over. So when I saw his post I replied.
"It wasn’t even about me — it was about my guys. I couldn’t get the points without my team. I thought the pic was fun and we need all positive moments."
(bossman99 is Crowder's Instagram username, while dbook is Booker in the post below.)
omg Devin Booker 🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐 pic.twitter.com/R68oT0tAXX
— adam figman (@afigman) March 25, 2017
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Booker and the Suns believe the nights like Friday are the foundation for future success. Watson compares where his team is now to where the Thunder were during their early start.
"We won 23 games the first year, but we knew we had something with KD and Russ," Watson said. "The next year we won 50 and we took off. Why can’t this team do the same?"
It’ll be tough to match the play of those early Thunder teams with Durant, Westbrook and James Harden. Following that 23-win season in 2008-09, the Thunder have won at least 45 games each season, and OKC stands at 42-31 this year even after Durant's departure. Since the 2010-11 season (after Amar'e Stoudemire was traded to the Knicks), the Suns have only won at least 45 games once (48-34 in 2013-14).
Booker knows it won’t be easy, but don’t try to tell him he can’t do it.
"I’m built for this," Booker said. "It’s what I’m supposed to be doing. People gonna talk, but I’ll be over here handling business. This is only the beginning for me."