It has been a solid run lately for the Phoenix Suns as they work through the schedule following the All-Star break and move toward a spot in either the Play-In or the postseason. The team is 4–1 over its last five games. You can certainly point to the level of competition during that stretch, although when you consider the injuries and the increase in minutes for young players, what Phoenix has done deserves some credit.
A month ago this team was not rolling out lineups featuring Khaman Maluach, Rasheer
Fleming, Haywood Highsmith, and Amir Coffey. Those combinations simply did not exist. Head coach Jordan Ott has pulled the right levers with those players, placing them into the rotation in moments where they can succeed, and that has helped fuel this recent stretch. Make no mistake, though. The biggest driver behind this run is not the flashiest storyline, although it might be the most reliable one.
Devin Booker is back.
His return following the injury has steadied the ship for Phoenix and helped spark this stretch that now includes a three-game winning streak. Booker does not always deliver the loudest highlights. He is not drilling a deep three and signaling for defenders to fall asleep. He is not launching himself toward the rim for poster dunks or pointing toward the floor after breaking an ankle like his teammate Jalen Green might.
Book? He simply attacks the mid-range and puts the ball in the basket. For a team that spent much of February struggling to score consistently, watching Booker operate again has been a welcome sight.
Something else has started to happen since Booker returned to the lineup. His efficiency is slowly climbing back to where you expect it to be. It has been one of the season’s most interesting paradoxes. Devin Booker has experienced a down year relative to scoring, three-point percentage, and overall efficiency. Yet the team has continued to win games.
Why? The biggest reason is the way Booker has leaned into facilitation and his overall gravity as a player. He has used his scoring ability to create opportunities for everyone else. Defenses collapse toward him, the ball swings, and teammates find clean looks. Booker is averaging 6.1 assists per game, and players around him are producing some of the best seasons of their careers. That shift has changed the structure of the offense. Booker does not need to score 30 points every night for the Suns to win.
That was one of the concerns entering the season. There was a belief that Phoenix might rely too heavily on Booker’s scoring burden. If that happened, the wear and tear over the course of the season could break him down and drag the offense with it. Instead, the opposite occurred. Even with the efficiency dip, the team continued to succeed.
And now Booker is starting to look like Booker again.
Over the last five games, he is averaging 26.6 points while shooting 42% from the field, 39% from three, and 94% from the free throw line. He is also averaging 5.8 assists during that stretch. He has four consecutive games scoring 25+ points.
The three-point shot, in particular, is beginning to rebound. Before this five-game run, Booker was sitting at 30.8% from deep. After going 16-of-41 from beyond the arc over the last five games, that number has climbed to 32%. It is slowly inching its way back toward his career average of 35.2%. And if that trend continues, the offense around him becomes even more dangerous.
As the team prepares for whatever the postseason holds, Devin Booker is starting to regain the efficiency that has defined his game. The timing could not be better. For much of the season, the team carried some of the weight created by his inefficiencies. Now the pendulum is swinging the other direction. Booker is returning the favor by looking more like the version of himself that Suns fans have grown accustomed to watching.
The mid-range assassin. The player who can halt a scoring run with a calm pull-up from fifteen feet. The player who slows the game down when things begin to spiral. One possession, one jumper, momentum changes.
It quiets a lot of the noise that has surrounded his season. Even before this recent stretch, he was putting together an All-Star-level campaign. This run only strengthens that case. If he stays healthy and plays every remaining game, there is a real path where he finds himself back in the All-NBA conversation. But more importantly, the level rises on what the Suns could be once the postseason arrives.
