Devin Booker on Thursday scored 31 points, while Chris Paul added 23 to spark Phoenix over Milwaukee 118-108 and give the Suns a commanding lead in the NBA Finals.
Phoenix’s Mikal Bridges scored a playoff career-high 27 points for the Suns, who seized a 2-0 edge in the best-of-seven series, which shifts to Milwaukee tomorrow for Game 3.
“It’s a 0-0 mindset for us,” Booker said. “It’s a Game 7 mentality for us. Every game is a Game 7 for us. It gets rowdy up there, but we’ll be ready for it.”
Photo: AFP
Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 42 points and added 12 rebounds, but the Bucks could not offer the 26-year-old Greek forward enough support as they went down 0-2, the same deficit they overcame to beat the Brooklyn Nets in the second round.
“We’ve just got to keep staying aggressive,” Antetokounmpo said. “We’ve been here before. We know what the deal is. We’ve got to enjoy the game. It’s hard when we’re losing, but we’re going to figure it out.”
The Suns are seeking their first NBA crown, while the Bucks are trying to capture their first title in 50 years.
“We’ve got to just keep making it tough on them,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “We’ve got to look at the film and keep working to get better against this group.”
Booker delivered his eighth 30-point game of the playoffs, while Paul, in his first NBA Finals at 36, added eight assists.
Deandre Ayton added 10 points and 11 rebounds for the Suns, while Jae Crowder had 11 points and 10 rebounds, but the surprise effort came from Bridges, who hit eight of 15 from the floor and eight of eight from the free-throw line.
“We need that,” Booker said. “It takes a lot of pressure off everybody once we get it going on the offensive end.”
Phoenix outscored Milwaukee 15-4 over the final 4 minutes, 40 seconds of the second quarter to seize a 56-45 halftime lead.
The Suns, without a prior playoff loss after seizing a 10-point lead, let the Bucks shoot only 35.8 percent in the first half.
Antetokounmpo scored 20 points in the third quarter, the most by any player in an NBA Finals quarter in 25 years, but the Suns still led 88-78 entering the fourth.
The Bucks closed within 93-88, but an Ayton layup and back-to-back three-pointers by Booker gave the Suns a 101-88 edge with 7:18 remaining.
Milwaukee answered with a 7-0 run, Jrue Holiday scoring five of his 17 in the spurt to pull the Bucks within 103-97 with 5:15 to play.
Paul responded with a three-pointer and assisted on a Bridges’ layup, boosting the Suns’ lead to 108-97, and the Bucks came no closer than eight points after that.
“We had a 10-point lead and we just wanted to hold that,” Booker said. “We knew they would come out desperate. We defended well and made some shots at the end.”
That lifted the Suns, who went 20 of 40 from three-point range, two wins from their first title, but they are not thinking that way.
“We have to approach every game with a level of desperation,” Suns coach Monty Williams said. “We can’t look at the series numbers. Our mentality is play every game as if we’re coming off a loss.”
The Suns lost Torrey Craig to a leg injury at the end of the third quarter just a day after losing Croatian forward Dario Saric with a torn knee ligament.
Two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Antetokounmpo, who missed two games with a hyperextended knee before returning in the opener, scared the Bucks when he fell to the court in the second and third quarters, but he rose and continued each time.
“Just a cramp,” he said. “I don’t think it was connected to my knee.”
The Bucks, who surrendered 25 points at the free-throw line in the opener, went almost 16 minutes before being whistled for their first foul.
Milwaukee drove inside repeatedly, outscoring the Suns 20-0 in the paint, while Phoenix went eight of 14 from three-point range in a first quarter that ended with the Bucks up 29-26.
The Suns matched their first-game total of 11 three-pointers by halftime.
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