Booker Torches Warriors for 43 as Suns Hand Golden State Third Straight Loss

The Warriors came to Phoenix looking for their first win of the season. They left 0-3, undone by a problem that should scare anybody in the Bay: this team simply doesn't have anybody who can slow down a guy cooking like that.

Booker scored 43 points on 17-of-25 shooting, and the stretch that broke this game open came late in the third quarter and into the fourth, when he kept answering every Golden State push with a pull-up jumper or a drive. The Warriors actually led for 37 percent of this game and hung around deep into the fourth — Will Richard's three with 3:00 left even trimmed a Phoenix lead to seven, 124-117 — but Booker and Phoenix's bench kept finding the counter.

That's the story in a sentence: good enough to make it a track meet, not good enough to win the race.

Shootout, not a shootaround

This one never slowed down. Golden State shot 45 percent from the field and a blistering 44 percent from three (17 of 39), and it still wasn't enough, because Phoenix shot 58 percent overall and piled up 33 assists to the Warriors' 24. The Suns also beat Golden State up on the break, 27 fast-break points to 10, and owned the paint, 60 to 48.

The Warriors actually built an early cushion, going up 25-22 after one quarter behind a barrage of threes — Yaxel Lendeborg had two of them in the opening frame alone, with Brandon Williams chipping in from deep too. Golden State briefly stretched that lead to seven points in the first quarter, its largest cushion of the night. But Phoenix's firepower off the bench — Collin Gillespie and Jordan Goodwin combined for 20 points and 13 assists — kept erasing those advantages, and once Booker got rolling in the third quarter, the Warriors were chasing for good.

The stat sheet

Lendeborg was Golden State's best player by a mile: 26 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists, hunting threes (6 of 11) and setting up teammates all night. De'Anthony Melton came off the bench and matched him shot for shot with 25 points on 8-of-13 shooting, and Graham Ike grabbed a team-high 10 boards to go with 12 points. Brandon Williams added 20.

For Phoenix, it was Booker's show, but Gillespie's 11 points and 9 assists off the bench were the connective tissue, and Khaman Maluach chipped in 9 points and a game-high 9 rebounds.

What it means

Three games in, the Warriors are 0-3 and 0-2 on the road, and the issue isn't effort or shot-making — it's stopping anybody when the other team's star decides to go nuclear. Phoenix shot 58 percent as a team and still needed 43 from one guy to feel safe. That's a defense that's going to be a problem if it doesn't tighten up fast.

Next up: a Monday date in Denver, where Golden State will try to find its first win of the season against the Nuggets.