The Utah Jazz were determined to not become the 2016-17 Boston Celtics of the 2018-19 season, as a string of intentional fouls late in regulation kept Phoenix Suns phenom Devin Booker from reaching the 60-point mark.
Despite the loss, Devin Booker dropped 59 PTS on the Jazz and joined Tom Chambers as the only Suns players with multiple 50-point games pic.twitter.com/kCwEExvCWE
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 26, 2019
Jazz bench players fouled Booker's teammates in efforts to keep Booker away from the line, a strategy that left the fourth-year shooting guard extraordinaire with 59 points on the night. The 22-year-old made 19 of his 34 field goals, including 5-of-8 from deep and a formidable 16-of-17 from the foul line, adding four boards, four dimes, and a steal in 41 minutes of action.
The Jazz intentionally fouled so Booker couldn’t get another bucket 😬 pic.twitter.com/7xgGjTbfN1
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 26, 2019
Very ironically, it was only two-years-and-one-day ago that Booker dropped a 70-point bomb on the Celtics to become the highest scorer of that season. There was little left to do to stage a comeback, but then-coach Earl Watson left a then-second-year prodigy on the floor, hoping he could rack up as many points as his flaming hand could let him.
Booker would score his last two points from the stripe, giving the Suns a reason to celebrate, despite a ghastly 24-win season.
Much like in that game, the Suns had very little skin on this game, already down by 30-plus points by the time Booker was approaching the 60-point plateau. In the spirit of the basketball gods, Booker should have been on the bench for the bulk of that quarter.
Yet the Suns' commentary crew felt very different from that:
“He's down there saying foul someone other than Devin, I mean it's just funny,” said Eddie Johnson on the call. “Why don't you man up?”
“See for me, it's like all of the sudden now you want to be creative to stop him — no, why don't you put your best defender on him and let Devin go one-on-one and see if he can stop him. That to me is more impressive than triple-teaming him.”
Different strokes for different folks and all of that.
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