How big should Devin Booker’s hamstring injury be for the upfront Phoenix Suns?
A day after Booker walked away from Phoenix’s Game 2 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans in the third quarter, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported Wednesday that Booker likely won’t play either Game 3 or Game 4 in New Orleans because the Suns diagnosed a slight strain in the hamstring.
Phoenix, who finished with an NBA-best 64-18 record, suffered six of those losses in the 14 games Booker missed during the regular season — though half of the non-Booker losses came in the final eight days of the schedule as the Suns rested multiple players. Still, Booker has emerged as perhaps Phoenix’s most important player, becoming a contender for MVP and First-Team All-NBA.
How likely are the Suns to get at least one split on the road against the Pelicans to regain home field advantage in the series? And what would be the implications of a prolonged absence as Phoenix seeks to win the first championship in franchise history?
Let’s break down the impact of Booker’s injury.
How the Suns’ game plan changes without Booker
Booker’s longest regular-season absence came in early December, when he missed seven games due to a torn his other hamstring. During that stretch, Phoenix went 5-2 by a modest plus-3.1 margin, which was well below the team’s league-leading plus-7.4 mark over the course of the season.
Of course, the Suns are fortunate to have a safety net.
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Enter veteran star guard Chris Paul, who has transformed his game to be more of a goalscorer when Booker is on the bench. In 736 minutes without Booker, Paul’s usage rate has gone from 18% of the team’s plays with a shot, turnover, or trip to the free-throw line when the two play together to 23% without him, according to NBA Advanced Stats. Although Paul didn’t see a drop in goal efficiency with Booker on the bench, his turnover rate went from 2.2 per 36 minutes to 3.2.
Perhaps the biggest problem with Booker’s absence is the minutes coach Monty Williams has to play without either star guard on the field. With Booker exiting Game 2 just as Paul was due to take his usual break, Phoenix played the final 4:35 of the third quarter without either of them. The Suns were outplayed by four points during that stretch.
More points from Paul alone won’t be enough to make up for the lost production without Booker, whose 32% utilization rate Phoenix easily leads this season. No other Suns starter had a higher utilization rate than Deandre Ayton’s 21.4%. In the nine games Booker missed — three of them with Paul, who was also not on the lineup — Ayton’s score rose to 19.3 PPG from 16.8 when Booker was available.
After 21 points on 10-of-15 shooting in Phoenix’s comfortable Game 1 win, Ayton had just 10 points and attempted just six shots in Game 2. He was mostly a non-factor as the Suns finished the game without Booker and scored two points on 1-of-2 shooting in the final third. Look for Phoenix to try and get Ayton more involved early in Game 3.
We haven’t mentioned Booker’s likely replacement in the starting lineup: Landry Shamet. Shamet hadn’t seen any action in the series before Booker left Game 2 but played the majority of the remaining 17 minutes. While the Suns will certainly lean more towards the backcourts when they pair Paul with his backup Cameron Payne, those duos are too small to match the New Orleans starting five. Shamet started all 14 games Booker missed during the regular season and expects to get the call again in Games 3 and 4.
Shamet’s 41% 3-point shooting will help Phoenix maintain the ground clearance Booker provided when he’s off the ball. However, he’s not the same type of shot creator and also a defensive demotion from Booker. The Suns scored well after Booker was knocked out on Tuesday but watched the Pelicans shoot 69% from the field the rest of the way, including 7-of-9 on 3s.
Booker’s schedule and Phoenix’s playoff prospects
The good news for the Suns is that Booker’s hamstring injury doesn’t sound serious. Per Wojnarowski, Phoenix has yet to rule him out for the remainder of this series. A return to the first round is realistic with a hamstring load of undetermined severity. Jeff Stotts of InStreetClothes.com noticed this the average downtime for such injuries this season was 8.5 days. Game 5 of the series takes place a week after Booker’s departure, while Game 6 is played nine days after.
The better the Suns can play without Booker, the more leeway they have to be conservative with his injury. New Orleans has already shown that this series will be closer than the 28 win gap between the two teams in the standings suggests. Despite Booker’s beaming 31 points in Tuesday’s first half, the Pelicans held a three-point lead when he left the game.
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Phoenix is better than you think
Phoenix can point to the team’s successes on the road as a reason for optimism. The Suns tied 32-9 both home and away and joined the 1969-70 New York Knicks as the second team in NBA history with a better road record than any other team’s home brand.
The early line at Caesars Sportsbook has Phoenix as a point favorite for Game 3 on Friday (9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN). That suggests the Suns have a better than 75% chance of having at least one win in the two games in New Orleans and about a 25% chance of going home 3-1 in Game 5 and to end the series.
At the same time, Phoenix should be hoping that the Dallas Mavericks-Utah Jazz series drags on for as long as possible and delays the start of a potential second-round matchup. Ideally, the Suns could finish New Orleans without Booker and give him more than two weeks of rest and rehab before returning to the court to open the Western Conference Semifinals.
If Phoenix can pull off a win or two down the road, Booker’s injury could be a blip on their postseason path, much like Paul’s missing the first two games of last year’s West Finals after testing positive for COVID-19 before the series. But the pelicans might have something to say about that.