INGLEWOOD, Calif. – A rare event occurred early in the first quarter of the Halloween meeting between the Phoenix Suns and the LA Clippers at the Intuit Dome. When Suns shooting guard Devin Booker entered the game, he drew all five Clippers defenders and kicked to power forward Kevin Durant, who swung the ball to new point guard Tyus Jones.

Clippers wings Norman Powell and Terance Mann approached Jones, who attempted to split the Clippers defenders and drive into the zone again. But Jones was stripped of the ball by Mann – the first time all season that Jones had his dribble stolen.

The Suns trailed by 21 points with 10:51 left in the third quarter on Thursday night. But Jones’ value helped the Suns get back into the game simply by helping Booker and Durant reach advantageous spots on the court. Booker’s first shot of the second half was a mid-range attempt off the screen: good, with an assist from Jones. The next time, Jones found Booker on the left wing, and Booker hit a one-dribble, pull-up shot from mid-range over Powell toward the baseline. On third down, Booker screened Jones to force Derrick Jones Jr. to switch with Powell, then Booker took Jones’ pass and dribbled into a Jusuf Nurkic ball screen for a 3-pointer.

The Suns fired their first 15 consecutive shots to start the second half, an offensive avalanche that turned a potential Clippers loss into a coin toss game. Maybe that would have been a struggle for last year’s Suns, a team that lost four games after leading by more than 10 points in the fourth quarter. But for the fourth time this season, the Suns outscored their opponents in the fourth quarter Thursday night, outscoring the Clippers 125-119 and improving their record to 4-1.

After Jones’ early turnover, he recorded a season-high 11 assists without adding another turnover to his record. That’s one of the things that’s very different about Phoenix’s offense this season.

“I think he stabilizes them, and I think their offense is better with Tyus,” said Powell, who was in the same 2015 draft class as Jones. “It was a good offense for them. There are people who can score: D. Book and KD. One of the best scorers in the game, one of the best scorers of all time. I mean, their offense is the same, but I think Tyus really helps them stabilize, especially as their games go on.”

Jones was not a priority free agent among NBA teams. Although he broke his own NBA record for assist-to-turnover ratio (7.3 assists, 1.0 turnovers) last season as a starter for the Washington Wizards, the 6-foot-1, 196-pound Jones was available for most of July before signing a minimum contract with a Suns team that had a hard time playing competent late-game basketball.

Last season, Booker took on the role of point guard. According to Second Spectrum, Booker averaged 73.4 touches per game despite sharing a roster with Durant and Bradley Beal. The only other season in which Booker had more touches per game was 2018-19, when Booker was tasked with primary playmaking duties a year after Eric Bledsoe said he didn’t want to be in Phoenix. The results weren’t all bad last season, as the Suns were still the 10th-best offense in the NBA.

But Phoenix ranked last in fourth-quarter point differential and was outscored by an average of 2.4 points per game in the money quarter. To illustrate, the Miami Heat were 29th in fourth quarter point differential, but were only outscored by 1.2 points per game in the fourth quarter. Only the Memphis Grizzlies and Portland Trail Blazers, two teams that lost more than twice as many games as they won, had a worse assist-turnover ratio than Phoenix last season (1.43). The Suns’ offense dropped to 105.1 points per 100 possessions in the fourth quarter last season, the worst in the league.

A big problem the Suns had last year under Frank Vogel was that the roster relied on traditional point guards. The Suns figured they could play through Booker, Beal and Durant while adding players like Eric Gordon to the roster as the de facto backup point guard.

But not this year. In five games, Jones has 35 assists and four turnovers, an even better assist-to-turnover ratio than last season. In the fourth quarter, Jones shares a team-high eight assists with Booker, but only one of Jones’ turnovers this season came in the fourth quarter.

“What a relief,” Booker said The athlete about Jones’ presence.

Booker’s touches per game on Thursday night were 57.5, the lowest since the Suns were the NBA’s best regular-season team in 2021-22. While Booker has endured a heavy workload before in his career, he’s happy to be able to focus more on buckets with the addition of Jones and his assist-to-turnover agent Monte Morris to the Phoenix roster.

“That’s naturally what I’ve been most of my life, and that’s a playmaker and a scorer,” Booker said after scoring a season-high 40 points on 11 of 18 field throws against the Clippers. “These guys can set the table, relieve us and ensure that not every basket is difficult. You get a few easy ones in transition, they find you in the corner. Instead of having to recreate every time, you have someone who can do it for you.”

It’s not just Booker’s life that’s gotten easier. Last season, Durant shot 48.8 percent from the field in the fourth quarter. He also had more turnovers (62) than assists (56) in 71 fourth quarters last season. This season, Durant’s late-game efficiency is much better: 57.1 field goal percentage, with a modest but improved assist-turnover ratio of 3:2. Durant pointed out that part of Jones’ value lies in his ability to also be a threat as a shooter and be willing to defend the ball.

“The more playmakers and decision-makers there are on a team, it’s always good at this level,” Durant said. “The ball is still going through me, Book, Brad. But when you add Tyus in as well, he meddles a bit. He doesn’t just control the whole game and give us shots whenever he wants. I think we all just play in each other’s flow. I could bring it up, Ty could bring it up, Book could bring it up. Brad. The more versatile the attackers are, i.e. four or five players passing the ball, it just throws everyone off. The key is that we can all catch and shoot the ball, catch and drive and also play off the ball.”

As important as Jones’ presence is to Phoenix, the Suns still want to be good in lineups that don’t feature a true point guard. Suns head coach Mike Budenholzer won a championship in Milwaukee in a season where Jrue Holiday was his point guard. Budenholzer believes the Suns will have to play well with or without a true point guard on the field.

“I think there’s a trend, just with the big guys, and in general, everyone who brings the ball up the field, plays faster, gets it on the floor and just plays with a lot of space and a lot of movement, and plays more randomly.” said Budenholzer. “In this environment, it can be good to play without the traditional point guards, where you might not prepare and play slower, play in the half court and maybe play the way the NBA has played for a long time. “So I think it is There is a trend towards faster, more random and more space. I think that can also allow you to play without the traditional point guard.”

It’s still early, but the Suns are off to a 4-1 start, thanks in part to their ability to come back and score points in games. Before erasing a 21-point deficit, the Suns overcame an 18-point deficit to beat the Los Angeles Lakers at home. Just a week ago, the Suns erased a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to escape the Clippers in overtime. The organization Jones brings can be illustrated by a play for which he didn’t even get an assist – a Royce O’Neale corner 3 in the fourth quarter, assisted by Booker in the final minute after the Clippers Jones had several bodies on one Screen shown by Booker:

“Having his experience, having his leadership, having him organize us,” said Budenholzer. “I think early in the third quarter he put us in the right spots. He got the guys the ball. … He’s exactly what we need.”

(Photo: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)