PHOENIX — As Jalen Williams’ jump shot sailed through the net to tie the score with 8.2 seconds remaining, Devin Booker felt a sense of calm.
He knew he would get the ball after the timeout and have the chance to have the last word in Sunday’s game against the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder.
“I’ve been here before,” Booker said after hitting the game-winning 3-pointer with 0.7 seconds left in the Phoenix Suns’ 108-105 victory. “In my imagination and my training in the summer, it always comes down to moments like this. So I felt like I had been here before.”
Booker has plenty of experience in similar situations. It was his ninth career go-ahead goal in the final five seconds of the fourth quarter or overtime. According to ESPN Research, only DeMar DeRozan (11) has made more such shots since Booker entered the league in 2015-16.
On Sunday, Booker hit his latest game-winner in isolation against Alex Caruso, one of the league’s premier perimeter defenders.
“I guess they liked the game they had against them,” Suns coach Jordan Ott said. “We liked who had the basketball and the space they had.”
Booker, who finished with 24 points, caught the pass just beyond the half-court line and dribbled to the Suns logo at midcourt before attacking. He crossed from right to left between his legs, took a hard dribble to the left and launched the step-back jumper on a close fight from Caruso and a late double team from Luguentz Dort.
“You can’t get to the point down the road where you give an All-Star, All-NBA caliber player a chance to win the game,” Caruso said.
The only flaw in Booker’s execution was that he didn’t want to leave any time on the clock after the shot. Oklahoma City’s Ajay Mitchell missed a rushing 3 at the buzzer to seal the victory for the Suns.
“We’ll take it,” Booker said.
It’s a resounding victory for the Suns (21-14) against the defending champions. Phoenix lost its first two games to Oklahoma City (30-6), including a 49-point loss without Booker in the NBA Cup quarterfinals – the league’s most lopsided game this season.
“Obviously, they’re everyone’s target,” Booker said. “They are the champions, and they are experienced. They are a very good team, so they are the ones you want to play against. And we all believed in it.”
On Sunday night, the Suns rallied from an 18-point deficit to give Booker the chance to score the game-winner.
“They play hard. They play together,” said Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who was held to 25 points on 8-of-22 shooting. “In this league, when you play hard and you play together every night, you give each other a chance. And then you add the talent and the personnel — they’re a good team.”
Reserve guard Jordan Goodwin played a leading role in Phoenix’s comeback, scoring a career-high 26 points on 9-of-16 shooting, including 8-of-13 from 3-point range. He repeatedly took advantage of the attention Oklahoma City’s top-ranked defense paid to Booker, who found Goodwin on four of his nine assists and helped set up two more Goodwin buckets.
“Most of the corner 3s Goody made were because our superstar was making the basketball,” Ott said. “The unselfishness of the group starts with the best player. … Being able to continue to make the right play empowers his teammates. He continues to make the right play, and at the end of the night, the ball is going to come to him.”
