Devin Booker said he wanted to make the most of his visit to Mexico City. He did.
The 20-year-old scored a career-high 39 points for the second game in a row as the Phoenix Suns beat the San Antonio Spurs 108-105 on Saturday in the fifth regular-season game in Mexico.
Booker, whose grandfather is from Mexico, was 12 of 22 from the field. He also had 39 points on Thursday night in a loss to the Dallas Mavericks.
Photo: AP
“I’m proud of the team overall, we bounce back after what happened the other night against Dallas, we play against a really good team like the Spurs and we came out with a close win,” Booker said. “We are seeing beauty in the struggle. We played real well.”
Booker has 13 30-point games in his two-year career.
“Devin Booker does not want to leave Mexico, he’s averaging 39 points, so he wants to play Utah on Monday,” Suns coach Earl Watson said. “I’ m excited for Devin, he’s only 20 years old and he won’t be 21 until October, so we are very excited about his progression and everything that he’s doing.”
Kawhi Leonard had 38 points for the Spurs. They lost for the second time in their past three games.
“The Suns did a great job of being aggressive for 48 minutes, they clearly played very competitively as it was evidence by their 26 or so second-chance points they got and we exacerbated with 20 points off our turnovers,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said.
Booker made two baskets to give the Suns the lead in the final minute, including a dunk off a break with Bledsoe that made it 106-103.
Leonard made two free throws to get San Antonio within one. P.J. Tucker made two free throws for Phoenix and Danny Green missed an open three-pointer to hand the win to Phoenix.
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