Suns take back homecourt advantage with Game 3 win over Pelicans

It was anyone’s game entering the fourth quarter Friday night at Smoothie King Center.

While anyone could have impacted the outcome, one special player who was once special for New Orleans was special in dismantling his former team.

Chris Paul was fantastic, taking over the game with 19 points in the fourth quarter to lead visiting Phoenix to a 114-111 victory over the Pelicans.

Paul was fantastic with 28 points and 14 assists. Perhaps even more impressively, Paul had no turnovers.

In a game that featured 15 lead changes, the game opened with a beautiful pass from Brandon Ingram to Jaxson Hayes for a dunk.

Then, the Pelicans struggled offensively for a few minutes while Phoenix excelled and built a five-point lead behind the play of Paul and DeAndre Ayton.

Then, Monty Williams elected to rest both for the final three minutes of the quarter and New Orleans took advantage, closing the quarter on a 9-3 run to take a 29-28 lead after one quarter.

Paul had five points and five assists while Ayton scored 13 points and pulled down four rebounds.

Ingram led the Pelicans with nine points but Devonte Graham gave New Orleans a lift off the bench with five points.

It was a half of runs. The Pelicans had an 11-0 run and the Suns had a 7-0 run.

Hayes got into it with three different Phoenix players and after throwing his shoulder and body into Jae Crowder, Hayes was ejected from the game with 5:13 to play in the half. New Orleans led 44-43, at that point. That was about to change.

It was clearly a flagrant foul but to eject a player in a playoff game of this magnitude is over the top, unnecessary and unjustified.

The officials did not even call a foul on Hayes but simply reacted to Crowder going after Hayes in the aftermath, allowing them to review the play.

That decision changed the momentum as Phoenix seized the moment and blew out to a six-point lead as New Orleans got stagnant with too much isolation on the offensive end and continued to turn the ball over.

The Suns closed the half on a 16-4 run to take a 59-48 lead at the half.

Phoenix outscored New Orleans 31-19 in the period.

Ayton was unstoppable, with 21 points and seven rebounds on 10 of 14 shooting from the field. The Suns shot 51 percent from the field while the Pelicans shot 37 percent.

Phoenix won virtually every metric, aside from rebounding, in the half.

The Suns had eight fast break points to just three for New Orleans. Phoenix scored 17 points off 10 New Orleans turnovers while the Suns committed just two turnovers.

Most notable was the Suns destroying the Pelicans 38-14 on points in the paint.

CJ McCollum was just 4 of 12 from the field, including 1 of 6 from three-point range while Jonas Valanciunas was only 1 of 5 from the field in the half.

The Pelicans had 11 bench points in the half, all by Graham, getting nothing from four others.

Cameron Johnson picked up three fouls in the first half for Phoenix.

Trey Murphy started the second half in place of Hayes.

Phoenix went up 13 early in the third quarter but New Orleans went on a 12-0 run to cut the deficit to 66-65.

The Pelicans actually took a brief lead but trailed 81-79 going to the fourth quarter.

The halftime adjustments by Willie Green have been huge in the series.

The Pelicans outscored the Suns by 11 in game one and by 12 in game two in the third quarter. Tonight, they outscored the Suns by nine (31-22) in the quarter.

Then came the fourth quarter. Then came CP3.

Jose Alvarado had nine points in the fourth quarter for the Pelicans.

While Alvarado was good, Paul was simply great.

He took over the game.

The Pelicans had no answer.

It was a replay, of sorts, of game one when Paul took over in the fourth quarter, when he was part of 24 of his team’s 31 points in that period.

How efficient was Phoenix in the fourth quarter?

The Suns scored on every possession from the 7:34 mark until Johnson missed a pair of free throws with 6.5 seconds remaining.

Ingram did what he could, scoring 34 points with seven rebounds, sinking 11 of 19 field goal attempts. McCollum put in 30 points with seven assists. Herb Jones and Devonte Graham each had 12 points.

New Orleans got little out of the center position as Valanciunas had just six points, though he did pull down 11 rebounds. Larry Nance had just two points on 1 of 8 shooting.

Meanwhile, Phoenix punished New Orleans in the post.

Ayton finished with 28 points, 17 rebounds and three steals and JaVale McGee had 15 points off the bench as the Suns dominated the Pelicans 64-40 in the paint.

The Suns shot 51 percent from the field and committed just five turnovers. Phoenix scored 23 points off 15 New Orleans turnovers.

Paul now has 38 assists and just two turnovers in the three games.

The Pelicans were stagnant offensively, most of the night, with only 17 assists on 38 made shots. Spacing was lacking and there was too much walking the ball up the floor and playing the isolation game.

Phoenix was favored by a point for a reason.

Even without Devin Booker, the Suns are very good.

The Pelicans found that out the hard way.

Chalk it up to experience and learning.

Game four is Sunday night at 8:30 p.m. at Smoothie King Center