Suns’ Paul promises to ‘take care of the ball’

MILWAUKEE – The ball was in the hands of their veteran leader, and the Phoenix Suns were trying to pull out a victory during the final minutes of Game 4 of the NBA Finals when not once, but twice, Chris Paul lost the ball late in Wednesday’s 109-103 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks.

The pair of unforced errors led to two Milwaukee touchdowns, one with 3:40 to play to cut the Suns’ lead to one point and another with 27.2 seconds to play that pushed the Bucks’ lead to four, and fueled a furious finish by the Bucks. to even the series 2-2.

“It was me,” Paul said, responding to why Phoenix had 17 turnovers as a team compared to just five for Milwaukee. “I had five of them. It was bad decision-making.”

The Suns outshot the Bucks 51.3% to 40.2% in shooting percentage, but had 19 fewer shot attempts due to turnovers and all the offensive rebounds they gave Milwaukee. The Bucks’ 17 offensive boards led to 19 second-chance points.

“They got a significant amount more shots than we did, so I have to do a better job protecting the ball,” Paul continued. “We had 17 turnovers, we shot the ball too well to not get those scoring opportunities.”

It was Paul’s worst playoff game since the first round when he was playing with a shoulder ailment against the Los Angeles Lakers. Beyond the turnovers, he had just 10 points on 5-of-13 shooting and seven assists, well below his averages of 19.2 points and 8.7 assists this postseason.

“The turnovers just crushed us tonight,” Suns coach Monty Williams said of his team’s mistakes. “When you have that kind of lead in the fourth segment, if we can hold on to the ball and get good possessions, you feel like you can at least keep it there … We certainly had a lot of self-inflicted things tonight.”

And then there were the things that affected the game through referee whistles, something that is becoming a theme in this competitive series.

A big reason the Suns hit over 50% of their shots was the brilliant play of Devin Booker as he scored 42 points on 17-of-28 shooting.

As great as he looked, he committed five fouls, which limited his playing time in the final quarter, and should have been fouled for a sixth and disqualified around the 3:40 mark when Giannis Antetokounmpo scored on the first of two Paul turnovers late to cut the Suns’ lead to one point.

After Paul lost the ball and Jrue Holiday ran down the other end with the ball, Booker chased Holiday down and wrapped it up. The box score credited Booker for a block on Holiday, which Antetokounmpo cleaned up with a layup. However, referee crew chief James Capers told a reporter after the game that Booker should have been whistled for a foul on the play.

“During the live game, I saw a clean block of the ball and thought it should not have been whistled,” Capers said. “However, after watching the replay, I realize I didn’t see Booker’s right arm around Holiday’s waist, and it should have been a defensive foul on the play.”

The Bucks won and Antetokounmpo scored after the no-call on Holiday, so perhaps there was no harm in that no-foul. Though Williams wondered what might have been for Booker had he not been penalized for a fifth foul early in the fourth quarter while grappling with P.J. Tucker.

“It’s tough, because he could have scored 50-plus tonight,” Williams said of the decision to keep Booker on the bench from the 10:50 mark of the fourth segment until 5:55 remained to try to avoid a sixth foul. “You’re just trying to get stops and get solid possessions as you can [on offense], but it’s not an ideal situation.”

When Booker came out, the Suns were up by six. When he came back, they were up by three. So they hung tough without him. It was those last few minutes that really sunk Phoenix.

“This is the Finals,” Cameron Johnson said when asked if the ending was a shock after Phoenix led 37:55 of the first 44 minutes of the game before the Bucks made their final push. “It’s the Finals, you’re not going to get away with anything easy. You’re not going to get to a win with no problem. I’m sure they’re going to say the same thing. It’s three more games, you know. Three more. You’ve got to get two of those.”

“But there’s no such thing [a comfortable win] here. There’s a lot at stake, a lot at stake. They know what’s at stake. We know what’s at stake. We come in here up 2-0. You know what they were talking about in their locker room. Now you know what we’re going to talk about in our locker room.”