Paul’s big 4th lifts Suns to 2-0 lead
The top-seeded Suns were braced for another fourth-quarter playoff fight Wednesday night. Chris Paul turned it into an early knockout.
The 12-time All-Star scored 28 points, including 14 in another spectacular final period, to lead the Suns over the fourth-seeded Mavericks 129-109 for a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference semifinals.
Paul, who turns 37 on Friday, almost single-handedly turned a tight game into a comfortable victory — the Suns’ 11th win in a row against the Mavericks counting regular-season games.
“You’ve just got to lean on the work,” Paul said. “It all goes back to the work. You can’t cheat the game. You’ve got to do the strength and conditioning, you’ve got to lift, you’ve got to get your rest, you got to get your shots up. “When you do that, you live with the results.” Suns guard Devin Booker said he’s run out of ways to describe Paul’s fourth-quarter heroics.
“You guys tell me, you’re watching the same thing,” Booker said. “It impresses us every time we see it, but it doesn’t surprise us. It’s just the will to win.”
The Mavs led 60-58 at halftime but the Suns recaptured the lead after Booker hit back-to-back 3-pointers early in the third. The Suns took an 89-83 advantage going into the final quarter and it looked like a tough fight was coming.
But that’s about the time Paul decided the game was his to control, hitting six shots in a row on everything from 3-pointers to mid-range jumpers to layups. The feisty Mavericks finally didn’t have an answer. Booker hit a pair of 3-pointers midway through the fourth to give the Suns a 114-95 lead.
Booker led the Suns with 30 points on 11-of-19 shooting, including 5 of 8 from 3-point range. The Suns shot 64.5% overall — which was a franchise record in the playoffs — and made 52% of their 3-pointers. They shot 84% from the field (16 of 19) in the fourth quarter.
The Mavericks will go home in a 2-0 hole, desperately needing contributions from someone other than Luka Doncic, who scored 35 points on 13-of-22 shooting two nights after a 45-point performance in Game 1. Grizzlies’ Brooks gets 1-game ban: Grizzlies star Dillon Brooks was suspended for one game without pay by the NBA for making “unnecessary and excessive contact” that resulted in a fractured elbow for the Warriors’ Gary Payton II in Game 2 of the the Western Conference semifinals.
The league announced the penalty Thursday, so Brooks must sit out Saturday’s Game 3 with the series shifting to Chase Center in San Francisco tied at one game apiece.
Payton was injured with 9:08 left in the first quarter when Brooks clobbered him on the head and the guard fell awkwardly on his left arm. Brooks received a Flagrant 2 foul and was ejected. Warriors coach Steve Kerr called it a “dirty” play.
The Warriors said Thursday that journeyman Payton also sustained ligament and muscle damage on the play that Kerr said “broke the code” of NBA conduct. Payton underwent an MRI exam in the Bay Area on Wednesday and will be re-evaluated again in two weeks.
The NBA also announced Thursday that Warriors forward Draymond Green was fined $25,000 for directing an obscene gesture at the Grizzlies fans. He flipped them off with both hands while going to the locker room to be examined for an injury in the first quarter Tuesday. Smart expects to play: Celtics guard Marcus Smart says there’s a “strong likelihood” he’ll play Saturday after missing Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals with a bruised right thigh.
“We’re just dealing with the last part of it, and that’s getting that restriction off of the knee and the joint so I can be able to bend,” Smart said Thursday. “Once that goes away, I should be back to myself.”
The series is tied 1-1 as it heads to Milwaukee after the second-seeded Celtics earned a 109-86 victory over the third-seeded Bucks in Game 2.
Smart said the injury is similar to an issue he faced in the regular season. The NBA defensive player of the year missed six games in January due to a quadriceps problem. He added he’s also dealing with fluid in his knee.