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

Clippers wings Norman Powell and Terance Mann converged on Jones, who tried to split the Clippers defenders and drive back into the paint. But Jones was stripped of the ball by Mann – the first time all season that Jones’ dribble was stolen.

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

The Suns ultimately made their first 15 shots in a row to start the second half, an offensive avalanche that turned a potential Clippers rout into a coin flip. 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 opponent in the fourth quarter on Thursday night, defeating the Clippers 125-119 and improving their record to 4-1.

After Jones’ early turnover, he had eleven assists on the season without adding another turnover to his record. It’s one of the things that’s very different about Phoenix’s offense this season.

“I think he keeps them in check, and I think their offense is better with Tyus,” said Powell, who was in the same draft class as Jones in 2015. “It was a good choice for them offensively. You have guys who can score: D. Book and KD. Some of the best scorers in the game, one of the best scorers ever. I mean, their offense is the same, but I think Tyus really helps them stay steady, especially throughout the game.

Jones was not a priority free agent among NBA teams. Even though he broke his own NBA record for assists-to-turnovers ratio (7.3 assists, 1.0 turnovers) as a starter for the Washington Wizards last season, the 6-foot-4, 196-pound Jones was nearly the Available all month of July. signing a minimum contract with a Suns team that was struggling to play 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 in 2018-19, when Booker was given top 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 tenth-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. For perspective, the Miami Heat ranked 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-to-turnover ratio than Phoenix last season (1.43). The Suns offense plummeted to 105.1 points per 100 possessions in the fourth quarter last season, the worst mark in the league.

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

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

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

Booker’s touches per game on Thursday night was 57.5, the lowest since the Suns were the NBA’s top regular-season team in the 2021-2022 season. Although Booker has had to take on a heavy workload earlier in his career, he is happy to focus more on business with the addition of Jones and fellow assistant turnover agent Monte Morris to the Phoenix roster.

“It’s just what I’ve been most of my life, which is a playmaker and a scorer,” Booker said after scoring a season-high 40 points on 11-of-18 shooting from the field against the Clippers . “Those guys can set the table and take the pressure off us and make every basket not difficult. You get some easy ones in transition, they find you in the corner. Instead of having to create every time-down, you have someone who can do it for you.

It’s not just Booker’s life that has been made easier. Last season, Durant shot 48.8 percent from the field in the fourth quarter. Last season, he also had more turnovers (62) than assists (56) in 71 fourth quarters. Lately this season, Durant’s efficiency is much better: 57.1 percent field goal percentage, with a modest but improved 3:2 assist-to-turnover ratio. Durant pointed out that part of Jones’ value is that he can also be a threat as a shooter and is willing to play off the ball.

“The more playmakers and decision makers you can have on a team, it’s always good at that level,” Durant said. “The ball’s still running through me, Book, Brad. But when you add Tyus into the mix, he blends in a bit. Not only does he control the whole game and give us shots whenever he wants. I think we’re all just playing into the flow of each other. I could bring it up, Ty could bring it up, Book could bring it up. Brad. So the more versatile forwards you have, with four or five guys handing the ball, it just throws everyone away. The key is that we can all also catch and shoot the ball, catch and drive.”

As crucial as Jones’ presence is for Phoenix, the Suns still want to be good in lineups without a true point guard. Suns head coach Mike Budenholzer won a championship in Milwaukee during a season where Jrue Holiday was his point guard. Budenholzer believes the Suns should play well with or without a true point guard on the floor.

“I think there is a trend, just with big players, and in general, with anyone bringing the ball up the field, playing faster, getting the ball on the ground, and just playing with a lot of space and playing with a lot of movement . and play more randomly,” Budenholzer said. “That environment can lend itself to playing without the traditional point guards, where you might not be lining up and playing slower, playing in the half court and maybe playing like the NBA has played for a long time. So I think there is a trend towards faster, more random and more space. I think this also allows you to play without the traditional point guard.”

It’s still early, but the Suns are off to a 4-1 start in part because they’ve come back in games and gotten buckets. Before overcoming a 21-point deficit, the Suns overcame an 18-point deficit to beat the visiting Los Angeles Lakers at home. Just a week ago, the Suns overcame a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to escape the Clippers in overtime. The organization Jones brings can be illustrated in 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 put multiple bodies on Jones had shown a screen. by Boeker:

“With his experience, with his leadership, with him organizing us,” Budenholzer said. “I think he got us in the right places at the beginning of the third quarter. He made sure the boys got the ball. … He’s exactly what we need.”

(Photo: Christian Petersen/Getty Images)