J-Speaks: A Historic Performance by Devin Booker At The Celtics

For any young player in the very early stages of their professional sports career, you want to prove to the organization you play for, your teammates and coaches and the fans that you belong and that you will put your best foot forward to become one of the very best in your profession. On Friday night in one of the very best sport’s city’s in North America, 20-year-old Devin Booker of the Phoenix Suns announced his arrival to all that watched him in person and those that watched on television.

In the Suns (22-51) 130-120 loss at the Boston Celtics (47-26) on Friday night, their seventh defeat in a row and ninth setback in their last 10 games, second-year guard Devin Booker scored a career-high and a Suns’ record 70 points.

It is the highest scoring night by an individual player since future Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant’s 81-point performance versus the Toronto Raptors back in 2006. It also represented an NBA high for the 2016-17 campaign. The previous high was 60 points by Klay Thompson of the back-to-back Western Conference Champion Golden State Warriors in their 142-106 defeat versus the Indiana Pacers (36-36) back on Dec. 5, 2016.

Booker became the sixth player in NBA history to register 70 points or more in a regular season game.

The highest total was the 100-point performance by the late Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlin. Second is the previously mentioned 81-point game by Bryant back in 2006. That is followed by Hall of Famers David Thompson, who scored 73 in a game; Elgin Baylor and David Robinson who each had 71 and the 70 points of Booker.   

Booker, the No. 13 overall pick in 2015 out of University of Kentucky was 21 for 40 from the field, including 4 for 11 from three-point range and 24 for 26 from the free throw line.

After scoring 19 points in the opening half, Booker had 23 points in the third quarter, going 10 for 10 from the charity stripe and then scored 28 of the Suns’ 40 points in the fourth quarter. In total, Booker had 51 of the Suns’ 77 points in the second half.

“If you played basketball, you’ve been in that zone before,” Booker said to NBATV’s Casey Stern, former Kentucky Wildcat Rex Chapman, and Vinny Del Negro via Cisco Telepresence after the game on Friday night.

“It may not be the extent of 70 points, but you got in that zone when you’ve gotten hot and you think everything going in. Going against a really good Boston Celtics team, with a really good defense, I knew I was going have to lock in tonight. Once I got it going, my teammates kept finding me. Kept setting screens for me and once I got past 50 [points], then there’s just going to me every possession.”

During his out-of-body 28-point output in the final stanza, Suns’ head coach Earl Watson used a couple of timeouts in the closing moments to get Booker some extra touches.

With his point total climbing and even some of the faithful in the TD Garden audience began to cheer the more Booker scored, which kind of irked some of the Celtics players.

“It was weird what they were doing,” Celtics’ All-Star guard Isaiah Thomas, who had 34 points on the night to lead the C’s to their third win in a row said after the game. “I’ve never seen anything like that. It is what it is… But I mean it was obvious what they were trying to do. They were trying to get him the most points possible. Hats off to him. He played a hell of a game.”

This was not just the best scoring night in the NBA this season with Booker scoring a NBA season-high of 70 points, he became the youngest player in NBA history to score 60 points or more at 20-years and 145 days old and scored the most points in a game against the Celtics.

Baylor held the previous scoring record against the 17-time World Champion C’s with 64 points when he played for the Minneapolis Lakers on Nov. 8, 1959.

Chamberlin, who had six 70-point performances in his career scored 62 points on Jan. 14, 1962, which was the most points in a regular-season contest in Boston at the time.

“Utmost respect to the Boston Celtics. Utmost respect to my teammates and tonight is a special night for me and my family,” Booker said to Stern, Chapman and Del Negro after the game.

He also set a new Suns’ scoring record that was previously held by current Suns’ pregame and postgame analyst for FOX Sports Arizona Tom Chambers, who registered 60 points on Mar. 24, 1990. It was an exceptional performance and despite the fact it rubbed some of the Celtics the wrong way, coach Watson made no apologies for it, especially what he did in the final moments.

“I’m not coming into any arena just happy to be there, trying to be liked. I don’t care about being liked. I really don’t care to be honest with you,” he said after the game. “We’re trying to build something with this young group. If people don’t like us while we build it, so what? Do something about it.”

Prior to this record setting performance, Booker’s previous career-high in points scored was 39, which he first did in the Suns’ 119-108 win at the Los Angeles Lakers (21-51) on Nov. 6, 2016. He had 39 points in back-to-back contest with the first coming in a 113-108 loss versus the Dallas Mavericks (31-40) in Mexico City on Jan. 12, where Booker went 14 for 20 from the field, including 6 for 7 from three-point range and 5 for 7 from the foul line. The second came two days later in a 108-105 win versus the San Antonio Spurs (55-16), in Mexico City where he went 12 for 22 from the field, including 3 for 5 from three-point range and 12 for 12 from the charity stripe.

This performance by Booker on Friday night and throughout this season sent a clear message that he is an up and comer that will be one of the bright stars in the league for a long time, provided he stays healthy and that he will be a major part of the Suns’ future as they are rebuilding their team back into one that consistently wins and is a perennial playoff participant.

One area that Booker said that he needs to work on is his leadership skills and he has veterans like Tyson Chandler and Jared Dudley to learn from. Booker said that the two have taken him under their wing and showed him the kind of player and leader he needs to be as one of the main cornerstones of the Suns future along with the likes of guards Eric Bledsoe and Brandon Knight, center Alex Len, forward Marquese Chriss, his former teammate at Kentucky guard Tyler Ulis, forward Dragan Bender, forward/center Alan Williams, and forward TJ Warren.

“They let me know that this is going to be your team in the future and you are going to have to start leading people by example and lead by actions,” Booker said. “It’s tough sometimes being so young, because sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing, but we have a really good young core and we’re fighters. We’re competitors and I see a really special future here in Phoenix.”

It is one thing to earn respect from your peers in terms of your teammates and the opponent, but it is something else to earn the appreciation from the opposing fans, which Booker did one the game was over as he received a standing ovation from the Celtic faithful at TD Garden near the end of the game.

“That means the most,” Booker said. “Not only was my team cheering me on tonight, but like I said, the utmost respect for the Boston Celtics fans. That surprised me the most. They started cheering a little bit. Knowing how hectic they are against some teams, that meant a lot.”

On Friday night at TD Garden in Boston, MA, Devin Booker put every great skill in his offensive arsenal on display on Friday night. He made open shots from the perimeter. He attacked the basket and got to the foul line and converted all but two of his 26 attempts. More than anything else, Devin Booker on a night when the Suns had nothing to play for but pride put his best foot forward and made sure that when this night concluded, the entire basketball world knew who he was and that he will be someone that we will all be talking about going forward, provided again he stays injury free the remainder of his career.

Information, statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 3/25/17 2 a.m. edition of NBATV’s “Gametime,” presented by State Farm with Casey Stern, Rex Chapman and Vinny Del Negro; 3/25/17 www.espn.com/nba/recap/_/id/400900417; www.espn.com/nba/player/gamelog/_/id/3136139/devin-booker; www.espn.com/nba/team/schedule/_/name/phx; www.espn.com/nba/team/roster/_/name/phx/phoenix-suns and www.nba.com/games/20170324/PHXBOS#/matchup/boxscore/recap.