5 takeaways from Suns response win over Thunder as Devin Booker reaches 10K career points

Both teams filled up the NBA's COVID health and safety protocols Wednesday night.

The Thunder had five players in it as well as their head coach, Mark Daigneault.

The Suns had four in there as well as their head coach, Monty Williams.

Add Shai Gilgeous-Alexander out with right ankle soreness, this rematch was missing some key players and head coaches.

The difference was one team has Devin Booker. The other team didn't have anyone close to that Wednesday night.

Booker scored 23 of his game-high 38 points in the first half of Phoenix's 115-97 win before a sellout crowd of 17,071 at Footprint Center after back-to-back losses to Golden State and Memphis.

The 25-year-old All-Star became the seventh-youngest player to reach 10,000 career points with LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, Tracy McGrady and Giannis Antetokounmpo being ahead of him.

That's elite company right there.

While Booker was hitting a major milestone, Suns lead assistant Kevin Young earned his first win as acting head coach in the NBA.

That's major, too.

Here are five takeaways from Wednesday's win as the Suns (27-7) played their second game this season with just two referees as Justin Van Duyne is also in the league's health and safety protocols.

1. This proves the Suns knew who had the hot hand in the first half.

Coming off scoring 13 of his 19 points in the fourth quarter of Monday's loss to Memphis, Cam Johnson only took two shots in the first half.

Mikal Bridges only missed one shot on six attempts Monday, but only attempted three shots in the first half Wednesday.

Booker not only scored 23 points in the first half, but knocked down 4-of-6 from 3.

He's truly a gifted scorer who can not only score on all three levels, but get to the line. Booker shot 8-of- 10 for the game as he led the team in FTAs at 4.1 going into Wednesday's game.

To be honest, that's pretty low even with foul calls going down in large part to the referees placing emphasis on non-basketball moves. The Suns are sixth in the NBA in free throw percentage, but 26th in free throw attempts at 19.4 FTAs a game.

That number needs to be higher.

3. The Suns showed the importance of closing out quarters.

Finished first quarter on a 10-1 run to take a 33-23 lead.

Ended first half on an 11-4 run to have a 50-52 lead

Finished third quarter on an 11-6 run to take an 85-81 lead as JaVale McGee caught a long inbounds pass from Cameron Payne over Theo Maledon, turned and hit a deep two at the buzzer.

A little luck there, but the Suns will take it.

The Suns then closed the fourth on a 17-4 run.

That's how the better teams win more times than not.

3. The Suns had six players score in double figures and one wasn't Mikal Bridges.

Just odd to see someone who has made such improvements in his game only take six shots when the Suns are down two starters.

That's just a side note to a game the Suns should've put away a lot earlier.

The Thunder are down more players with Gilgeous-Alexander being one of them with the ankle, but Phoenix let them hang around.

Yes, OKC is scrappy. The Thunder play hard, but Phoenix had 15 turnovers that led to 16 Thunder points.

Oklahoma City scored 50 points in the paint.

Booker was special, but Chris Paul had just 10 points and only five assists.

Landry Shamet continues to have this uneven season as he went 3-of-10 with one miss hitting off the side of the backboard.

Had Cameron Payne not come through with his 16-point performance to go with a team-high seven assists, Phoenix might have ended up on the wrong end of this one instead of improving to 2-0 against the Thunder.

4. Good for Ty Jerome.

The Thunder guard scored a career-high 24 against his former team. He even poked the ball away from Booker to force a turnover.

The Suns made moves to draft him, he dealt with injuries as a rookie and then got traded before beginning his second NBA season in the Paul deal.

What's crazy is Jerome is the only one Oklahoma City got in the deal that's still on the team. Kelly Oubre Jr. was traded to Golden State and is now in Charlotte.

Oklahoma City sent Ricky Rubio to Minnesota. He's now with Cleveland and is out for the season after suffering a torn ACL.

Damn. Wish Rubio a speedy recovery.

And Jalen Lecque is in the G League as he was dealt to Indiana.

Jerome averaged a career-best 10.7 points last season, but the Thunder finished 22-50.

Gilgeous-Alexander only played 30 games as he had a foot injury and Daigneault was in his first season as head coach.

Jerome is averaging 6.1 points this season for a Thunder team that has Gilgeous-Alexander back and has more talent, but with so many players out right now, he got an opportunity to play big minutes Wednesday.

Played well. Would've had an even bigger night had he hit a couple of 3s.

Jerome missed his first five from 3 before finally making one in the fourth.

5. Yes, the whole league is going through this with the uptick in COVID cases.

Had more players see action in a season ever, and this season isn't even halfway over.

Teams have even had coaches out as Frank Vogel (Lakers) and Alvin Gentry (Kings) have been in protocols.

Hell, Mike Wilks isn't that far removed from being a scout after his NBA playing days ended in 2009-10. He was thrown into the fire Tuesday in replacing Daigneault.

So Young is just part of what could be a growing list, but still these are unusual circumstances. He can compare it to being in the G League and having guys called up to the league, but players ball in that league for an NBA opportunity.

This is different.

How so. Young thought he wasn't going to have backup guard Elfrid Payton for Monday's game as the backup point guard was placed in health and safety protocols Sunday.

Consecutive negative test later, Payton is cleared to play Monday.

Then Payton was put back in protocols within an hour of Wednesday's game.

Young seems to be handling it well. He's continuing to figure out the rotations and combinations, but giving Jalen Smith quality minutes has been huge.

Now honestly, Young really had no choice with Deandre Ayton and Jae Crowder in health and safety protocols. Ayton is the starting big and Crowder has played the five.

Plus Frank Kaminsky (knee) is still and Dario Saric (knee) haven't played all season.

Even Ish Wainright (back) has the football body to play the five.

So Young had to play him and Smith has delivered.

The 10th overall pick in the 2020 draft followed up a 15 and 9 effort in Monday's loss to Memphis with 11 and a game-high 14 rebounds. McGee bounced back from a foul-plagued effort Monday with 16 points and 8 rebounds — and that buzzer beater to end the third.

So Smith didn't need to score as much, but he got on the glass after the Suns were outrebounded, 50-35, Monday.

The backup big took another step towards getting minutes when Ayton, Crowder, Kaminsky and more importantly, Williams, return.

Have opinion about current state of the Suns? Reach Suns Insider Duane Rankin at dmrankin@gannett.com or contact him at 480-787-1240. Follow him on Twitter at @DuaneRankin.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 5 takeaways from Suns response win over Thunder as Devin Booker reaches 10K points