Devin Booker’s 4Q Takeover Wows NBA Fans as Kevin Durant, Suns Beat Curry, Warriors

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The 2023-24 NBA season is one day old, and Devin Booker has already made quite the statement.

In a season-opener filled with stars and future Hall of Famers, Booker shined the brightest while leading the Phoenix Suns to a 108-104 victory over Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors. The shooting guard finished with 32 points, eight assists and six rebounds on 13-of-21 shooting from the field and took over in crunch time.

In fact, Booker either scored or assisted on every Suns basket in the final six minutes of Tuesday’s game.

His brilliant showing in a contest that also included Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and Chris Paul drew plenty of praise:

The storyline before tip-off was Durant playing in front of fans at Chase Center for the first time. It was something of a homecoming for the 13-time All-Star, as he won two championships and two NBA Finals MVPs during his three years with the Warriors.

But he struggled to find his shooting stroke for much of the contest and finished 7-of-22 from the field. He still notched a double-double of 18 points and 10 boards, but he needed Booker to bail him out to move the Suns to 1-0.

It seemed like they were going to cruise to victory when they built a 15-point halftime lead, but Golden State had other ideas in the third quarter. The home team won the quarter 40-19 in a stunning turnaround with Paul doing work as both a scorer and facilitator and bench players such as Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody and Dario Šarić contributing.

Everyone on Phoenix went ice cold, and it was clear somebody was going to have to put the team on his back.

That is exactly what Booker did.

He scored seven straight points in the middle of the fourth quarter to set the stage for a thrilling finish and then found Josh Okogie and Eric Gordon for two monster threes in crunch time. Curry answered with a three of his own to cut the deficit to two, but Booker found Jusuf Nurkić with another assist in the final seconds to clinch the win.

The scary thing for the rest of the NBA is Durant will surely play better and Bradley Beal will return after missing Tuesday’s contest. Combine that with Booker’s stardom, and Phoenix looks like a title contender.