Kevin Durant had a game-high 32 points, Devin Booker added 25 and the host Phoenix Suns watched Chris Paul get a two-technical-foul ejection in his homecoming during the Golden State Warriors’ 123-115 loss Wednesday night.
Paul, who spent the last three seasons with the Suns before being dealt to the Washington Wizards in the offseason, got nailed with back-to-back technicals for arguing a foul call late in the second quarter.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr also got a technical for giving Paul verbal support.
The incident, which followed a call on Paul while defending Durant, came late in a second-quarter flurry by the Suns that turned a 42-40 deficit into a 63-47 halftime advantage.
Durant had nine points and Josh Okogie eight in the run. Booker added three — all the result of the technical fouls with 23 seconds left in the period.
The Warriors made things interesting at the end after Kerr elected to pull his starters with 6:05 to play and the Suns holding a 109-91 lead.
Brandin Podziemski had eight of his 10 points and Dario Saric, another former Sun making his first return since being traded, contributed four to a 24-9 burst that got the visitors within 118-115 on a Podziemski three-point play that turned into a four-pointer thanks to a Durant technical foul with still 19.0 seconds left.
But Booker (three) and Durant (two) iced Phoenix’s fifth straight win with five late foul shots, giving the hosts a 44-19 scoring advantage over the Warriors at the line for the game.
Durant finished 15-for-15 at the stripe and found time for a team-high-tying eight rebounds for the Suns, who also beat the Warriors on opening night in San Francisco.
Booker logged a double-double with a game-high 10 assists to go with eight rebounds, while Eric Gordon chipped in with 13 points, Okogie 12 and Nassir Little 10.
Klay Thompson had a team-high 23 points, Saric 17 and Stephen Curry 16 for the Warriors, who lost for the seventh time in the last eight games.
Andrew Wiggins added 11 points, while Paul had totaled six points and a team-high-tying six assists in his 17 minutes.
–Field Level Media