Despite Loss, Suns Fared Well Without Devin Booker

The Phoenix Suns have lost their fourth game in a row after dropping Sunday's round two meeting against the New Orleans Pelicans.

Phoenix has now dropped four consecutive games for the first time this season and last did so in the 2019-20 season.

The Suns would be without the talents of shooting guard Devin Booker for the first time all season. Booker, November's Western Conference Player of the Month and partly in MVP conversation, was out due to a hamstring injury that clearly impacted him in prior to Sunday.

As a result, Phoenix rolled with a starting lineup of:

Chris Paul

Torrey Craig

Mikal Bridges

Dario Saric

Deandre Ayton

The Suns tried a few different things throughout the game:

Typically, Phoenix has plugged Torey Craig into the No. 4 spot since Cam Johnson tore his Achilles.

However, the Suns opted to plug Dario Saric into the starting lineup and roll with Chris Paul as the lone true guard. Saric effectively matched up with Jonas Valanciunas while the athletic Deandre Ayton drew the task of staying with Zion Williamson.

Phoenix coach Monty Williams said the team wanted to get the ball out of Williamson's hands after a dominant 35 point-seven rebound-four assist night on Friday.

“Well, we wanted to get the ball out of his hands, Zion’s (Williamson), and we did that early. Then in the second half we allowed him go away from it, the blitz, and so he was able to get to the paint and he made some tough shots," said Williams.

"There were some shots when you were like, ‘Hey, what can you do?’ Such as the tip-in in the second quarter when he just punched the ball and it went in the basket. Those two points are crucial and you don’t even know the overtime, but we made a number of adjustments. We got into foul trouble, but I thought our guys did a really good job adjusting and trying to keep him out of the paint.

"It doesn’t seem as gross as it was yesterday. I look at the numbers this game, 70 plus in the paint, it was just a tough night.”

A tough night indeed, as Williamson posted strongly identical numbers with another 35 points to go along with eight rebounds and four assists. Sunday was only the second time all season where he made multiple three-point attempts.

Without Booker on the floor, roughly 20% of Phoenix's shot attempts were up for grabs on the offensive side of the court.

Mikal Bridges (27) took scoring initiative early but ultimately Deandre Ayton's 28 points were enough to pace the Suns on Sunday.

After rolling out essentially two bigs with Saric/Ayton, Phoenix then toyed with some three-guard lineups to get switches and mismatches on perimeter. Chris Paul failed to put his foot on the gas and remained rather passive while guys such as Cameron Payne and Damion Lee fired at will.

The Suns haven't exactly been at full strength throughout the course of the season thanks to injuries across the board, yet perhaps that's allowed other opportunities to thrive early. Some of that was shown in Sunday's loss in New Orleans in what was undoubtedly a step in the right direction after Friday.

However, when you're a team such as the Suns, winning is all that matters.

All things considered, Phoenix (already down depth) looked fairly strong without Booker, although the Suns could have used him and the cape that accompanies him in clutch time.

As a collective unit, the Suns weren't far off the mark in any major statistical category. New Orleans (who shot an astounding 58.1% from the field) simply made more plays down the stretch.

There's no clear timetable for Booker's return after he was marked day-to-day. The Suns move on to face the Houston Rockets on Tuesday.