On December 20, Beijing time, the NBA regular season continued to unfold, and the Suns, the first in the league, played at home against the Hornets. In this game, Suns Booker returned from injury, and the first quarter of the game seemed to lose suspense, and the Suns exploded a 37-15 offensive attack in the single quarter, leading to 22 points, and then maintained a double-digit lead. In the end, the Suns beat the Hornets 137-106 and won three consecutive games to secure the first place in the league.
Booker returned from injury in this game and returned to the starting lineup; the Hornets were through the epidemic period, and only Martin was absent. But in this game, the Hornets came up with a sluggish feel, and soon fell into passivity, the first quarter was completely suppressed, trailing by 22 points; then the Hornets began to fight back, but unfortunately the Sun felt hot, has maintained the lead, once the point difference was widened to 36 points, the third quarter of the game after the Sun led by 29 points, the game entered the garbage time. In the end, the Suns scored a 31-point win and continued to rank first in the league.
In this campaign, the Suns felt hot as a team, shooting 56.8%, 20 of 41 three-pointers, and 137 points without overtime. This time the Suns scored as high as 9 people in double figures, very average, the highest score came from McGee on the bench, with 19 points and 7 rebounds; the starting 5 people scored all in double figures, Paul 14 points and 9 assists, Booker 16 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists, Bridges 16 points, Ayton 15 points and 15 rebounds, Crowder 14 points, Shamet 15 points, Payne 11 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists, Johnson 12 points.
In the face of such a hot Suns team, the Eastern Dark Horse Hornets only had a share of the beating, and the whole game did not have a lead, and has been suppressed. In this game, the Hornets also sent all the main forces, but unfortunately they were powerless to change the situation behind, and only Bridges scored 26 points in the starting lineup. Three-goal poor form, 2 of 12, with nine points, 10 rebounds and seven assists; Rozier had just four points on 2-of-10 shooting, and Hayward had nine points on 4-of-13 shooting.
Booker is officially back in this game and has missed seven consecutive games due to a hamstring injury. He has also performed very well this season, averaging 23.2 points, 4.8 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game, and the cooperation with Paul is more tacit. This time against the Hornets, he also played very easily, playing 26 minutes, shooting 6 of 15, 4 of 8 three-pointers, and had 16 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists. Such a game is still very suitable, allowing him to slowly adapt to the rhythm of the game.