Suns Speak on Devin Booker Injury

Booker had been putting a solid performance with 17 points and six assists in 25 minutes before jogging to the locker room during a timeout with 5:18 left in the third and never returning. He was also undercut on a 3-pointer that led to an awkward ankle roll early in the first quarter.

Booker entered the night as one of three Suns players (Tyus Jones and Royce O'Neale) who had played in every game this season.

Bradley Beal (16 points) was just returning from a two-game absence due to right knee swelling and has missed 10 of the Suns' 26 games this season. Kevin Durant (game-high 37 points and 10 rebounds) has also been out for 10 games so far this year.

Booker, Beal and Durant were playing in just their 11th game together this season and Phoenix fell to 8-3 when all three are healthy.

Durant shared his thoughts on Booker's injury postgame.

"That sucks. You hate that injuries can get in the way of beautiful basketball, the game of basketball," Durant said (via Arizona Sports).

"That's a part of it, but it's still something (that's) tough to take. Hopefully, Book gets better by the hour, and we'll see how he feels the next couple days and move on from there."

This injury is especially tough because Booker looked to just be finding his groove after a slow start to the year having scored 25-plus points in nine of the Suns' last 10 contests before the loss to the Pacers.

Booker has also dealt with this injury in the past at an eerily similar time of the season:

After three days off, the Suns (14-12) will next start a stretch of five games in eight days beginning against the Detroit Pistons (11-17) Saturday, so Booker could be in danger of missing a good amount of games depending on how much time he needs to rest and recover.

After Detroit, the Suns travel to play the Denver Nuggets Monday, then host Denver on Christmas Day Wednesday and the Dallas Mavericks next Friday before going on the road against the Golden State Warriors for the second night of a back-to-back and closing the month at home against the Memphis Grizzlies on New Year's Eve.