Brown cap turned backward, a red-faced Devin Booker looked every bit like a man that clocked extra hours at the job after cooking the LA Clippers for 45 points Thursday in leading Phoenix to a 129-124 win in Game 3 of the first round of the Western Conference playoffs.

“He had it going,” Clippers coach Ty Lue admitted. “We tried everything. He’s a tough guy to cover.”

The three-time All-Star notched his fifth career 40-point postseason game, tying Charles Barkley for the most in franchise history, and helped Phoenix reclaim homecourt advantage heading into Saturday’s Game 4 (3:30 p.m. ET, TNT). Kevin Durant scored 28 points for his 120th career playoff outing with 25-plus points, the fifth-most in NBA postseason history behind LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Kobe Bryant.

Still, the Suns duo logged significant mileage in achieving the win and latest milestones against a shorthanded Clippers squad missing both Paul George and Kawhi Leonard.

“Win at all costs, that’s our motto,” Booker said in his postgame on-court interview with NBA TV. “We don’t want to give any games away. Even though they were undermanned today, we know those guys are still gonna bring it. So, we had to come with the hit-first mindset.”

In the process, Phoenix’s starting five surely absorbed taxing blows to its collective stamina given all the minutes the group has clocked over the last two games. We’ll delve into that and more in our five takeaways from Game 3:

Sloppy start

A typhoon of turnovers afflicted both teams in the opening half with Phoenix and LA combining for 20 turnovers. Placing that into context, these teams averaged a combined 25 turnovers over the first two games of this series.

By the end of the third quarter, the teams had already surpassed that average with a combined 27 giveaways.

The home team suffered the worst of the early turnover fest, surrendering all its 25 points off giveaways over the first three quarters alone. Just five minutes into the contest, the Suns had already scored nine points off seven Clippers turnovers, while the home team converted five turnovers from the visitors into eight points.

“We could’ve [taken] care of the ball in the first half,” Lue said. “I thought turning the ball over kind of got them going. KD got a dunk, Booker got a 3-point shot in transition, got a layup.”

The Clippers jumped out to a 6-0 lead before turnovers fueled a 12-0 run capped by a Deandre Ayton turnaround jumper.

LA committed 12 of its 18 turnovers in the first half.

Powell, Westbrook step up

With George already out with a knee injury, Lue got more tough news hours before tipoff. Leonard, a two-time Finals MVP, suffered a sprained right knee that would keep him out of Game 3. Leonard aggravated his right knee late in the team’s Game 1 win and elected to play through the injury in Game 2.

LA didn’t announce a definitive timeline for Leonard’s potential return.

“It’s very deflating,” Lue said. “I think more so for Kawhi because you have a guy that’s coming off [a torn] ACL, hasn’t missed a rehab session, eats right, eats clean, does everything he can for his body and worked extremely hard to get to this point. Then, you have something like this happen. I feel bad for him. Our guys have been through a lot this year, the last two years, just for us to compete to get to the point where we made the playoffs, and we were feeling pretty good outside of having [Paul George] out. When this happens, it’s a blow. But there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Norman Powell stepped into Leonard’s place in the starting lineup, contributing a team-high and career playoff-high 42 points. Powell started in eight games during the regular season and ranked fourth in the NBA in total points off the bench. So, the 29-year-old’s Game 3 performance came as no surprise, even though he had scored a total of 26 points in the first two games of the series.

Lue expressed confidence pregame that Russell Westbrook could successfully take on a larger role in the absence of Leonard. The veteran point guard didn’t disappoint despite a shaky start that resulted in five turnovers. Westbrook chipped in 30 points, 12 assists and three steals, combining with Powell for 72 points … while LA’s other three starters combined for just 13 points.

Leonard, meanwhile, had scored or assisted on 36 of the team’s 76 buckets over the first two games of the series, racking up the second-most points through two games of a postseason in Clippers history.

LA is 3-10 this season without Leonard and George and entered Game 3 averaging 108.2 points in their absence (compared to 114.4 ppg when George and Leonard play). The Clippers ratcheted up the production offensively in Game 3, though, with 124 points due mostly to Powell’s stellar performance and Westbrook’s solid work.

“We knew we needed a big game from him with Kawhi being out,” Lue said of Westbrook. “He did that. Him and Norm stepped up. We’re gonna need it again on Saturday.”

At the very least, LA showed it’s plenty capable of putting up strong numbers offensively if Leonard and George can’t go in Game 4.

Clippers’ bench keeps shining

Shaking his head while simultaneously scratching it, Suns coach Monty Williams admitted the dilemma the club might be eyeing the rest of the postseason given the scant production from the team’s bench in this series. Phoenix’s starters — Ayton, Booker, Durant, Torrey Craig and Chris Paul — have combined to score 89% of the team’s 362 total points so far in the series. The bench, meanwhile, has produced just 41 points.

LA’s reserves dominated Phoenix’s for the third straight game, outscoring them 39-18 in Game 3, and are up 103-41 overall in the series. This production isn’t unexpected, though. During the regular season, LA’s bench ranked No. 1 in offensive rating and 3-point percentage, third in scoring average and field goals made and fourth in assists.

What’s worse is three of Phoenix’s starters (Booker, Durant and Paul) clocked more than 40 minutes in Game 3, while Ayton checked in with 35 minutes. That’s coming off a Game 2 victory in which Durant and Booker played 44 and 45 minutes, respectively.

“To have him play that many minutes — and we needed it — and have that kind of production speaks to his ability to not just physically, but mentally grind it out,” Williams said of Booker. “I don’t want to have to play him that many minutes every night. But I felt like tonight we needed it. We’ll rest up tomorrow.”

The 34-year-old Durant and Paul, 37, could use some shut-eye, too, going into an early tip for Game 4.

Suns end their road woes?

It’s only one game, but Phoenix entered Game 3 at 17-24 on the road with losses in five of its last seven road games. The absences of Leonard and George certainly played a role here, but credit the Suns for never letting the sellout crowd of 19,068 at Crypto.com Arena adversely affect their performance in a crucial game.

Phoenix is 35-26 all-time in playoff Game 3s, including a 17-13 all-time record in road Game 3s. Additionally, the Suns are 3-0 against the Clippers this season in LA, while the Clippers have lost nine of their last 12 home games dating back to the regular season.

Free-throw discrepancy

We’ve seen Suns coach Williams earn a fine for ripping game officials when the margin of free throws between his team and the opponent takes on the look of lopsidedness. This time, however, the free-throw scales tipped Phoenix’s way by a whopping margin.

The Suns outscored LA 35-19 from the free-throw line, connecting on 76.1% with 21 more attempts than the Clippers. Phoenix’s 46 attempts registered as the most by the club in the postseason since 2005.

Durant led the way with an 11-of-11 performance from the line.

“Free throws were huge,” Lue said. “We had some bad fouls when we got in the penalty early. We wanted to bring our physicality, but we’ve got to be a little smarter. We can’t foul off the ball when they’re in the bonus. Some calls just didn’t go out way.”

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Michael C. Wright is a senior writer for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.

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