Suns Beat Shorthanded Warriors 131-122 as Booker Drops 43

The Phoenix Suns are winless no more. Devin Booker poured in 43 points and Phoenix beat a shorthanded Golden State team 131-122 on Saturday night, sending the Warriors to 0-3 for the first time in Stephen Curry's career.

Golden State kept it competitive without several rotation bodies, getting strong showings from Yaxel Lendeborg, De'Anthony Melton and Charles Bassey, but Booker's shot-making was the difference in a game that stayed entertaining into the fourth.

How Our Premium Pick Fared

We sold Phoenix -9.5 as the play. It missed. The Suns won by nine, one point shy of the number — a push-level sweat that never quite got there. That's a loss, plain and simple.

The moneyline on Phoenix hit; the Suns won outright. The Under 219.5 did not. The game sailed past that number, finishing at 253 total points, so the under was a clear loss.

The Takeaway

Laying a big number with a team coming off a 41-point loss was the risky part of the handicap, and it cost us on the spread. The read that Phoenix's opener was noise held up — the Suns' offense showed up — but the margin was always going to be tight against a Warriors group that competes. The total was the bigger miss: we expected a low-scoring game and got a shootout. Future spots: when backing a bounce-back team, the moneyline or a smaller spread is the cleaner route than asking for a double-digit cover.