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After losing in Brooklyn on Sunday, Suns star Devin Booker vowed to finish their five-game Eastern swing with a victory at the World’s Most Famous Arena. “That’s last thing we said in the
After losing in Brooklyn on Sunday, Suns star Devin Booker vowed to finish their five-game Eastern swing with a victory at the World’s Most Famous Arena.
“That’s last thing we said in the locker room,’’ Booker said. “We’ll be ready for [Monday].’’
And so they were. The Knicks have a lot of good things going but they don’t have Booker and they don’t have point guard Chris Paul — try as they might.
In a bitter end to their nine-game winning streak, Paul connected on three daggers in the final 1:30 to lift the mighty Suns to a 118-110 victory at the Garden. The Knicks once led by as many as 15 points.
Paul, whom the Knicks tried to trade for in the offseason, hit his first dagger with 1:20 left — a 3-pointer for a six-point Phoenix lead. Paul then drained an off-balance jumper from the foul line to make it a five-point game with 40 seconds left and finally ended it with another 3-pointer with 15 seconds to go.
It was a night when Julius Randle had a rare terrible game and RJ Barrett was also no bargain as the Knicks were outclassed by Booker (33 points), Paul (20 points, six assists) and even Mikal Bridges, whom the Knicks passed on in the 2018 draft in favor of Kevin Knox.
Randle looked worn down from all his minutes and finished with 17 points on 6 of 17 from the field. Barrett wound up with 17 points on 7 of 18 shooting and had his fast-break layup blocked by Bridges in the fourth quarter that led to fast-break points for the Suns.
Bridges also put the finishing touches on the Knicks with a late 3-pointer and driving baseline dunk to give the Suns a nine-point lead with 2:12 left. Knox didn’t play.
Booker hit a huge jumper in the lane over Bullock with 5:40 left, got fouled and completed the three-point play to give the Suns a 103-98 lead.
The Knicks (33-28) hit seven of their first eight shots and ran out to leads of 17-5 and 20-7, but would run out of gas. Their previous loss had come in Boston on April 7.
This story originally appeared on: NyPost - Author:Marc Berman
