NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CLIPPERS VS. SUNS

June 20, 2021

Devin Booker

Phoenix Suns

Game 1: Postgame

Phoenix Suns - 120, Los Angeles Clippers - 114

Q. A 40-point triple double for you tonight. Your first ever triple double in your first ever Western Conference Finals appearance. Just how special did that feel tonight?

DEVIN BOOKER: I mean, it's very special, but the win feels better. That's what I'm out there for the whole entire time. So part of the triple double is assists and that's my teammates making them pay for running and doubling and seeing different types of defenses. The rebounds come from Ayton boxing out when he has a Zubac or Boogie, and me coming in and getting the rebound. So it takes a whole collective team group to get what we got done tonight.

Q. That was fun to watch. I was thinking a lot of times when I see you go off like you did today, I think about Kobe and I know maybe you think about Kobe too. What were you thinking, if anything, and how did Kobe and Chris Paul, for that matter, help you do what you did out there today in your first ever Conference Finals game?

DEVIN BOOKER: Just what you said. I've been a student of the game for a really long time, and Kobe obviously being one of my mentors and Chris being one of my mentors and not being able to be here with us today, we wanted to do it for him. We talked about that pregame. We knew we were going to all have to give a little bit more. Ball security, my job keeping everybody involved, stuff that's usually on Chris's plate, we all had to make up for today as a team. Just the mentality, people say the Mamba mentality, just the approach of doing whatever it takes at all costs to get a win. It might not be 40 points next game. It might be more assists or making more plays for my teammates, the hockey assists.

So every time down, just valuing every possession, and that's something that Chris doesn't talk about much, but he's second to none in that category. So it's picking up bits and pieces and using them to my advantage.

Q. You had a lot of point guard with the ball in your hand. Seemed to have a good flow, a good feel for the game. When did it -- I don't want to say when did it become comfortable, but when did you kind of know that you were in that flow and you could read exactly what the defense was giving you and knowing when to pass, et cetera.

DEVIN BOOKER: Yeah, it's just reading the game from beginning to end. It's the playoffs. Teams are going to make adjustments. Teams are going to throw different defenses at you. And the preparation with our team and our coaching staff, I feel like we're ready for any type of defense that we see. Obviously they're playing small ball lineup and going to be switching a lot of action, so we have to find ways to counter that. But they're a really good defensive team over there, aggressive defensive team over there, so we just have to take care of the ball and make the right plays.

Q. Being in the environment tonight in the gym and just seeing how loud everyone was and you've been waiting for this moment a long time, was there a point when you were on the court where you were like, yeah, this is happening or just something where you felt like this was your moment?

DEVIN BOOKER: Right at the end. Right when we secured that last rebound. So they're not a team to take lightly. We understand what they have done in their past few games of playing all the way through. They came back from a 25-point deficit last game, so we know we have to finish out every win until the horn sounds. So you might see some emotion or some aggression at some points of the game, but I feel like I had to let it out right at the end when we secured Game 1.

Q. It looked like were you on your phone while leaving the floor. Were you talking to Chris there and what, if possible, were you saying to him and having that conversation?

DEVIN BOOKER: Yeah, we put him on FaceTime. He's our leader. We lean on him for a lot and we know how disappointed he is and frustrated is he couldn't be out here for Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, especially knowing his past history around this time.

But we know we had him all the way through. We brought him in the locker room. We had him in our after-game huddle. So he's proud of us. He's ready to get back. He's working and we can't wait to have him.

Q. DeAndre had 20 points tonight and you guys had 54 points in the paint as a team. They kind of adjusted in the second half, going bigger. How did you feel about that kind of big versus small cross-matching and how you guys fared in that?

DEVIN BOOKER: I mean, that's what we expected. We have been watching their games. We have been scouting them and they use the small ball lineup a lot. But it's a different matchup. We have a different team and DeAndre's seen that before and we try to take advantage of that. We try to use our size as an advantage. I think the first play of the game DeAndre got off and laid it in.

So hopefully we make teams adjust to us and use our size as our strength when they try to use those lineups, and when they go big we get right back to what we do.

Q. You've been in a lot of big moments throughout your career. You've been in a lot of good shooting zones. But where would you rank this performance you had tonight throughout your career and given the moment, magnitude, and everything on the line?

DEVIN BOOKER: I mean, I let you guys do the rankings. I'm just going out there to win every game possible. I've been saying it since the start of the playoffs. Every next game is our biggest game. So that's for everybody else to rank performances and such. I'm just out there trying to do my job and that's to win basketball games at all costs.

Q. I wanted to ask about the pace and poise because the pace of this game was relentless. How does that play in you guys' favor, especially having the fresh legs after getting more time off? And then just your poise down the stretch, not only making shots, but setting up the guys around you as well?

DEVIN BOOKER: Yeah, the pace of play, that's what we've played with all season. We rely on our defense, and if we get a stop, it let's our offense move flowingly and move freely. Any type of set or play in the playoffs, teams have scouted that so they understand that. So coach always says he puts us in environments and we just have to make plays, make basketball plays, be aggressive, and put them in rotation. And that's our job, one through five, everybody do their part and just go out there and hoop. But it starts on the defensive end and guarding.

Q. How were you feeling when you grabbed that last rebound and solidified the victory?

DEVIN BOOKER: Yeah, it felt good. We want to protect home court, so that was big for us to come out and secure that one. I don't know if I showed that much emotion through the playoffs that much, but not having Chris out there and being a high-intense game, we wanted that one bad. So it's obviously only one. We know what they're capable of and what they have done, came back, down 0-2 from their past two series, so we got to stay locked in.

Q. Did you know you were well on your way to a triple double?

DEVIN BOOKER: No, man, I think I've came close a few times in my career and just never got over the hump, but I'll take it now.

Q. Paul George and you were trading some pretty elite shots in that third quarter. He got going and then you kind of had to respond. Did you feel it was kind of an important, you know they were threatening to run away a little bit, and then you scored a bunch of those mid-range jumpers. Just kind of take me through that stretch.

DEVIN BOOKER: Yeah, just trying to assert my aggressiveness in there without Chris, taking on the playmaking role and trying to find the balance of keeping everybody involved and imposing my will on the game. And I think they got up 6 to 8. I know what stretch you're talking about. And I just wanted to be aggressive, so we did a lot of high ball screens and just got to my spot and made some shots.

Q. You've got an old school game. You get it done. Your fundamentals are there, the way you carry yourself, the old school car you drive. Where does all this come from?

DEVIN BOOKER: It's a product of my environment. I always credit the different situations that I've lived in, growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and then moving to Moss Point, Mississippi. For me, at that time, that was a big culture shock, just two totally different demographics.

But I fell in love with culture of figuring out people and why they act the way they are and it's usually where they're from. So just being a sponge to it, being a sponge to everybody around me, everybody I grew up with, and just seeing different things and just loving culture and loving people. So that's where it came from.

Q. Obviously, a lot of attention is going to be on the triple double, for good reasons, but how important was it to play all those minutes, handle the ball as much as you did, and only have two turnovers personally and just seven as a team?

DEVIN BOOKER: I mean, every time you say turnovers, I think of Chris, man. I've been alongside him all season and just watching him control the game and how he just never turns the ball over. When he does, it's a rare sighting. So we knew that was going to be a key for us today is taking care of the ball with the type of defense that they play, aggressive style defense where they gamble a lot and will reach. And we just have to be ready for that. I think if we take care of the ball, it will put us in pretty good situations and we usually get a good shot.

Q. They talk about three-level scorers. How important would you say that second level is, that mid-range? And as it's, over the last decade kind of diminished league-wide, how committed have you been to really keeping that second level?

DEVIN BOOKER: That's pretty much been my game my whole life. I never shied away from it and I never have not took those shots. I feel that's what a lot of defenses give up, you know, living by the so-called analytics. But I think it's for certain players and if you put your work in and you shoot those shots at a high clip, that it's tough for a defense to guard that because that's what they have been giving up all season.

Q. I noticed too that about the first three, three and a half minutes of the game you didn't take a shot. You moved the ball a lot of different ways that early and I noticed that every other one of your teammates got a shot up before you did. I'm curious, was that something you went into consciously to show trust in your teammates or did that just happen because you trust your teammates?

DEVIN BOOKER: I mean, I always trust my teammates, but usually the first few minutes of the game is scanning and analyzing what's going on and what they're throwing at you. I watched all their games versus Utah and Dallas and I watched how they guarded Luka and Donovan, so we had a pretty good idea of what they were going to throw at us and continue to throw at us. So with a small ball lineup, they're going to switch a lot of actions and they're going to run and hit and double that. It's kind of hard to time it because they do it randomly. But I trust my teammates. It's easy to get off the ball and have somebody else make a play. We have been doing that and punishing teams with that all season.

Q. What do James Jones and Monty mean to you and do you think having those two African Americans in this position of power ultimately has opened doors for others with a lot of coaching jobs open?

DEVIN BOOKER: I think that's the biggest part of what they're doing. People are realizing, understanding what's going on and who the real basketball minds are, that put countless numbers of hours into their craft and their work. I've seen those situations of being on the court before. So it's easier for them to approach us with conversation when they have an understanding where we're coming from. And I think that connection, the general manager and the head coach, that connection, that relationship with the players is very important if you want to win big.

Q. Have any players on other teams asked you what that's like?

DEVIN BOOKER: They haven't. They haven't. I don't talk to many people on different teams.

Q. Do they appreciate the rarity of having --

DEVIN BOOKER: You have to. And you have to give your props to Ty over there also, coaching their team. So it's, the game is transforming, you see more African Americans in position and I think it's going to continue to happen if you continue to see success and understand how important the relationship aspect of it is.

Q. Obviously guys would like to see Chris on the floor. But how has the process of this playoffs and being able to adjust with or without him, as well as just handling the different season-long challenges, how has that been this year?

DEVIN BOOKER: It's tough, but we talked at the beginning of the season and said, if we want to get to where we're going, we're going to have to come out with something. It's not going to be gravy all the way through, it's not going to be sweet all the way through. So our job is to control the controllables. Whatever the situation is we have to adjust to it and we have to keep playing through and keep playing hard. And that's the story of our team and that's been it for the whole season, just keep playing hard, no matter the circumstances, all 48 minutes.