Obi Toppin's put-back gives Pacers comeback win despite 62 points from Suns' Devin Booker

INDIANAPOLIS — The Pacers rallied back from a 17-point deficit despite 62 points from Devin Booker and got a put-back layup from Obi Toppin with 3.4 seconds to go to take a 133-131 win over the Suns on Friday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

The Pacers have won two straight and improved to 26-20. The Suns fell to 26-19.

Here are four observations.

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Obi Toppin goes between the legs, then scores the game-winner

The addition of Pascal Siakam seemed like it would cut even further into the minutes of forward Obi Toppin, who started at power forward to start the season after being acquired from the Knicks in July but was moved to the bench when the Pacers decided to go bigger on the front line on Dec. 26.

However, Carlisle has taken an open mind into his experiments with what lineups can work with Siakam on the floor and he’s been leaning toward going much bigger. On Friday night that meant the Pacers played minutes with Toppin, Siakam and Myles Turner on the floor. At one point, former starting power forward Aaron Nesmith was on the floor at shooting guard with those three.

All of that means Toppin still gets to show off his high-flying, fast-breaking game and on Friday night he did exactly that. Toppin scored 23 points on 10 of 15 shooting. He added 11 rebounds and three assists and he had the highlights of the night including the game-winning bucket.

With 6:21 in the second quarter, he got ahead of the Suns on a fast break after a steal and put the ball between his legs from left to right for a dunk on the break. In retrospect, it was a move he probably wouldn’t have attempted if he had realized the Pacers were down 13 before the dunk cut it to 11, but it did get the crowd hyped up.

“I didn’t know we were down,” Toppin said. “I just heard we were down when I did that. If I’d have missed that, that would have been bad for sure. I was like, ‘Thank God I made that,’ because I looked up at the scoreboard and was like, ‘Damn.'”

He wasn’t done after that either. With the game tied 131-131 and time running out, he grabbed a rebound off a Siakam miss and put it back with 3.4 seconds left to put the Pacers up and give them a stunning win. Guard Bennedict Mathurin missed the first shot and Siakam missed a putback and Toppin had to charge in from the right elbow to go up for the left-hand layup.

“We needed a point,” Toppin said. “Our objective was just to get the ball and crash the board whether it was a make or a miss. I think Benn drove and he tried to finish over somebody. Pascal caught it and missed the layup. The ball just bounced right in front of me and I just grabbed it and put it in.”

Toppin started 27 of the season’s first 28 games, but has seen dramatic swings in his minutes and opportunities since. In his previous seven games before Friday, he had scored in double figures every other game, scoring a combined six points in the three games in between. But the change in role hasn’t knocked him off his game.

“Obi Toppin is in his fourth year and he has graduated to the point where he has become an NBA pro,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “He knows who he is. He knows how he plays. He plays to his strengths. He’s able to put things behind that go wrong and he plays with a pure heart. You can’t ask for anything more than that.”

Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker (1) pushes past Indiana Pacers guard Ben Sheppard (26) on Friday, Jan. 26, 2024, during the game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

Devin Booker goes berserk for 62 points

After scoring 22 points in the third quarter of a 46-point performance in Wednesday’s win over the Mavericks, the Suns’ Devin Booker didn’t slow down at all to start Friday’s game. He scored 10 of Phoenix’s first 15 points and kept rolling after that. He scored 29 first-quarter points, setting the record for points by a Pacers opponent in one quarter. He was 10 of 14 from the floor, 4 of 6 from 3, 5 of 5 from the line in the first quarter alone, leading the Suns to a 40-point first period.

Booker scored two more points early in the second quarter before finally checking out with 31, and he returned late to add six more points and finish with 37 in the first half. A three-point play in the first minute of the third quarter got him to 40. He got to 50 before the end of the third with 15 points in that period and added 10 more to get to 62 in the fourth. However, he also missed a 3 at the buzzer that would have given the Suns the win.

In the fourth quarter, the Pacers brought constant double teams at him to try to get the ball out of his hands. He was 5 of 11 from the floor in the period, but the rest of the team was 3 of 15 and the team was a combined 1 of 10 from 3-point range. The Suns scored just 17 points in the period on 0.65 points per possession after scoring 40, 40 and 34 in the first three.

“We were doing some unconventional things with Booker and (Kevin) Durant and flying around,” Carlisle said. “In the fourth quarter, our guys just decided that we were going to make one additional effort on each defensive play and find a way to hang in and give ourselves a chance and we did.”

Pascal Siakam keeps raising his bar

After posting his first triple-double since November of 2022 in his fourth game with the Pacers, Pascal Siakam followed up with another spectacular performance in his fifth game with the team. The two-time All-NBA power forward scored 31 points on 14 of 22 shooting, setting a new high with the team, and also added seven rebounds and four assists. Also, while the Pacers were struggling to contain Booker, Siakam did solid work on Kevin Durant, helping hold him to 20 points on 9 of 16 shooting.

Siakam became the first Pacers player to score 30 points in a game since injured All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton had 33 against the Bucks on Jan. 3. He became the first Pacers player other than Haliburton to crack 30 points in a game since Bennedict Mathurin did it against the Clippers on Dec. 18. In five games with the Pacer so far, Siakam is averaging 21.8 points — shooting 57.0% from the floor and 45.5% from 3-point range, though a shaky 60.9% at the free throw line. He’s also averaging 8.0 rebounds and 5.6 assists.

“Pascal Siakam is a great fit with our team, our organization, our city,” Carlisle said. “He just oozes Pacer Nation along with really fitting in with the guys we have on the team. At this point, he realizes we need more from him right now with Tyrese still being out. He raised it to a seismic level tonight. We needed every bit of it.”

Aaron Nesmith makes life harder on Booker, scores 22

Pacers defensive ace Aaron Nesmith didn’t get the Devin Booker assignment when the game started, but shifted over from Bradley Beal toward the end of the first quarter. There would only be so much cooling him on this night, but Nesmith at least made him work hard for his shots, made him feel his presence and made himself a problem on the other end.

After scoring 31 points in the game’s first 13 minutes, Booker had 31 the rest of the game, which certainly doesn’t count as locking him up, but at least help keep the Pacers in it. Nesmith had constant help on double teams and blitzes, but whenever Booker was in single coverage, it was just Nesmith on him.

“He had already gotten it going, and when a player of that caliber gets going like that, he’s extremely hard to stop,” Nesmith said. “So I just tried my best to be as physical as I could be without fouling, make him work for everything, tire him out. He made tough shots time after time and he played a phenomenal basketball game.”

Meanwhile, Nesmith scored 22 points on his own on 8 of 13 shooting, including 3 of 6 from beyond the 3-point arc. And he was there to provide resistance on Booker’s miss at the end. Booker fell over when he caught the ball and Nesmith sort of tripped over him, but he then recovered to get a hand in his face and Booker’s shot missed the hoop entirely.

“Nesmith is as good of a competitor as we have,” Carlisle said. “He’s earned everything he’s gotten in his league and everything he’s gotten on our team. There is a defiant competitiveness in everything he does on the floor.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Obi Toppin’s put-back gives Pacers comeback win despite 62 points from Suns’ Devin Booker