The Milwaukee Bucks have squared up the NBA Finals at 2-2 after a thrilling 109-103 victory over the Phoenix Suns despite Devin Booker's 42-point haul on Wednesday.
The Suns led by six points at the final change but the Bucks, who trailed 2-0 in the series, stormed home led by Khris Middleton's 14 fourth-quarter points, finishing with 40 for the game.
Middleton starred with strong support from Giannis Antetokounmpo (26 points, 14 rebounds and eight assists) and Jrue Holiday (13 points, seven rebounds and seven assists).
After scores were level at half-time, Booker had piled on 18 points in the third quarter but Milwaukee made the key plays count in the final quarter.
Antetokounmpo made a crucial late block to deny Deandre Ayton from Booker's alley-oop lob, while Pat Connaughton came up with a key three-pointer.
Chris Paul had five turnovers for the game, including a late costly error which allowed Holiday to assist Middleton for two which put the Bucks four up with 27.2 seconds to play.
Phoenix shot better from the field, going at 51.3 per cent compared to Milwaukee's 40.2 per cent although they lost their radar late, but the Suns had 17-5 turnovers, with the Bucks scoring 24-5 points on turnover.
Middleton was a key influence for the Bucks, shooting 15 from 33 from the field along with three three-pointers, with six rebounds, four assists and two steals.
Middleton's 40-point haul was his postseason career high, while he outscored the Suns in the final two-minute stretch with 10-4 points.
Antetokounmpo put up 11 from 19 from the field at 57.9 per cent, while Brook Lopez chipped in a handy 14 points, although he and Holiday both missed all five of their three-point attempts.
Booker, who had his worst game of the playoffs in Game 3, responded with an excellent performance, shooting at 60.7 per cent from the field.
The young Suns guard almost fouled out late, with a non-call on a Holiday bucket with 3:30 to go but ultimately it would not be decisive.
The Phoenix Suns enter Game 4 of the NBA Finals with a difficult question to answer: how can they contain Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo when Deandre Ayton is not on the court?
Milwaukee cut Phoenix's lead in the series to 2-1 with a 120-100 victory on their home floor in Game 3.
It came behind a scintillating 41-point performance from Antetokounmpo, the two-time league MVP delivering a performance few could have foreseen when he hyperextended his knee in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals.
Antetokounmpo also had 13 rebounds in putting up a decisive double-double, taking advantage of another knee injury that could well prove a turning point in the series.
The Suns were without Dario Saric, the backup to starting center Ayton, in Game 3 because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament suffered in Game 2.
Coach Monty Williams initially went with Frank Kaminsky as Ayton's deputy, but also attempted to play small ball with Torrey Craig and Abdel Nader.
The plus-minus numbers for Kaminsky (-12), Craig (-12) and Nadel (-5) tell their own story. Milwaukee dominated when Ayton was not out there, outrebounding the Suns 47 to 36.
In this series, when Ayton has been on the court, the Bucks average 110.0 points per 100 possessions, compared to 125.3 with the former first overall pick off the floor.
Milwaukee's rebounds per 100 possessions with Ayton on the bench jump to 50.3 from 46.8 when he plays.
Similarly, the Bucks are substantially more effective from the three-point line without the presence of Ayton to deal with, converting 46.4 per cent of their shots from beyond the arc in the series compared to 34.7 when he is trying to stop them.
For all the attention lavished on Devin Booker and Chris Paul, Ayton arguably stands as the key player for the Suns if they are to claim a first NBA title.
Should there be a repeat performance in Game 4 on Wednesday when Ayton is forced to rest, then Antetokounmpo will have an excellent chance to improve his Finals average of 34.3 points per game and, more importantly, help the Bucks level the series.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Milwaukee Bucks – Brook Lopez
Another player who can capitalise on the blow the Suns have suffered to their big man depth is Lopez, the Bucks center who is averaging 6.7 points in the paint per game in the series – behind only Antetokounmpo and Ayton.
Lopez has produced double-digit points in four of his past five outings in this postseason, including a 33-point effort against the Atlanta Hawks in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals as the Bucks prevailed without the injured Antetokounmpo. Third in effective field goal percentage (60.9) among centers with 30 attempts or more this postseason, Lopez could compound the impact of Saric's absence for the Suns.
Phoenix Suns – Deandre Ayton
That his Finals numbers are inferior to those of Antetokounmpo is largely reflective of the point-scoring and creative burden taken on by Booker and Paul respectively. However, Ayton is the Suns player most should have their eyes on in Game 4.
He has averaged 35 minutes in this series compared to 37.7 for Antetokounmpo; will Williams up Ayton's time on the court in response to the events of Game 3 when he rested? Or will the Suns coach find a way to minimise the damage during Ayton's time on the bench? The answers could eventually decide the destination of the Larry O'Brien Trophy.
Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker says "short memory" will help him move on from his disastrous Game 3 shooting performance ahead of Game 4 on Wednesday.
Booker shot three from 14 from the field, going at 21.4 per cent, and only made one from seven three-point attempts in Game 3, finishing on 10 points as the Milwaukee Bucks won 120-100.
The result pulled the NBA Finals series back to 2-1 in the Suns' favour ahead of Game 4 in Milwaukee.
"Short memory, just move on," Booker said when asked how when asked about his Game 3 shooting.
Booker had scored 31 and 27 points in the opening two Finals games, shooting at 48 per cent and 38.1 per cent respectively, as well as hitting seven three-pointers in Game 2.
The 22-year-old has already scored 500 points this postseason, steering the Suns to their first NBA Finals in 28 years.
Despite the momentum shift in the series and his own poor display, Booker remained unflapped.
"Just understanding the task at hand and simply you just have to be better if you want to win the game," Booker said.
"That's obviously something I want and something this whole team and coaching staff and training staff wants and this whole city wants.
"I would say it's a good pressure. These are the moments that you prepare for and that you train so hard for, what we're in right now. You have to be excited about it."
Milwaukee won praise for their defensive efforts on Booker in Game 3, but Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer said his side expected him to be much improved in Game 4.
"I wouldn't say there was one specific thing or anything we did different," Budenholzer said.
"He's a great player, but he's human also. I think we're expecting we're going to have to be even better on him.
"We just got to be prepared for a really good Devin Booker going into Game 4."
The Los Angeles Clippers announced on Tuesday that star forward Kawhi Leonard has undergone surgery on a partially torn ACL.
Two-time NBA Finals MVP Leonard sat out the Clippers' last eight games in the postseason with a knee injury, with details undisclosed at the time.
The Clippers confirmed on Tuesday that the 30-year-old had gone under the knife, with no timeframe set on his recovery.
ACL surgery typically requires 12 months of rehabilitation and recovery to return to the court, although the Clippers stated Leonard's tear was only "partial" offering hope of a shorter timeframe.
Leonard originally sustained the knee injury in Game 4 of the Conference Semi-Finals against the Utah Jazz.
The Clippers had insisted Leonard was a game-by-game proposition but he did not return in the postseason as they bowed out in the Conference Finals to the Phoenix Suns.
The small forward averaged 24.8 points per game in the 2020-21 NBA regular season, along with 6.5 rebounds and a career-high 5.2 assists per game.
Leonard averaged 30.4 points per game in the postseason, with a career-best field goal percentage of 57.3 per cent, before injury intervened.
The Phoenix Suns received a "tough lesson" in Game 3 of the NBA Finals against the Milwaukee Bucks, but head coach Monty Williams expects his players to bounce back from the defeat.
Having won the opening two games of the best-of-seven series in Phoenix, the Suns went down 120-100 to a determined Milwaukee team on Sunday.
Giannis Antetokounmpo posted 41 points - making him the first player to reach 40 in back-to-back outings in the NBA Finals since LeBron James in 2016 - but it was far from a one-man show for the Bucks, as four other players also reached double digits.
Williams had warned his team to expect a backlash from their opponents, whose aggressive approach - Milwaukee had 13 offensive rebounds and attempted 26 free throws - helped spark life into the battle to decide the identity of this season's NBA champions.
"There's a lot of ways you can spin it, but they played with a great deal of aggression for longer stretches than we did," Williams told the media.
"We knew it was coming. We did not respond to it well tonight, especially in the second and third quarters.
"The turnovers certainly hurt us, points in the paint, everything we have been talking about the whole series. So it was a tough lesson for us to learn.
"You know what was coming, but just didn't do enough consistently to withstand their attacking the paint, whether it was penetration, offensive rebounding.
"We gave them so many possessions, so we lost a shot and then they scored off of it. It was a double whammy."
He added: "I think we know that we have to play with an unreal amount of aggression and energy for 48 minutes. That's the deal. All of our guys know that we didn't.
"We have had this happen to us before in the playoffs, and so I expect our guys to bounce back."
Chris Paul had 19 points for Phoenix and Deandre Ayton contributed 18 before running into foul trouble, restricting the center to just 24 minutes of action. Without him, Phoenix struggled to get defensive stops.
"He's a big part of our team, especially he's the anchor of our defense," Paul, who also had nine assists but landed just one of his four three-point attempts, said about Ayton.
"I feel like any team would love for him not to be on court offensively and defensively. So, yeah, we got to protect him better and make sure that we're showing that wall."
It was not just Paul who struggled from long range for the Suns, with the visiting team making just nine of their 31 attempts from beyond the arc for a success rate of 29 per cent.
The Suns had not trailed by more than seven at the half in the playoffs prior to Game 3, when the deficit stood at 15 following a dominant second quarter by the Bucks.
Game 4 takes place in Milwaukee on Wednesday.
"I said after last game, this team is not going to give in," Suns guard Devin Booker told the media.
"They're going to keep playing all the way through, so we have to bring that same effort that we had in the first two games and I think we'll be in good shape."
Milwaukee Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer praised Giannis Antetokounmpo for his aggressive mindset after he starred in Game 3 of the NBA Finals.
Antetokounmpo posted 41 points to see the Bucks past the Phoenix Suns 120-100 on Sunday, becoming the first player to score 40-plus points in back-to-back NBA Finals games since LeBron James in 2016.
The win was crucial for the Bucks, who now trail the Suns 2-1, and Budenholzer lauded Antetokounmpo's performance.
"He's just doing whatever it takes to help his team, to help us. He's in an aggressive mindset. He always plays that way," he told a news conference.
"But I thought he played with the pass well. He made some great reads, found guys, played against the zone.
"He just did a little bit of everything. Offensive boards, putbacks. We need a lot from him and that's what he does."
While Antetokounmpo starred, the Bucks also had Jrue Holiday (21), Khris Middleton (18), Brook Lopez (11) and Bobby Portis (11) in double digits for points.
Antetokounmpo also finished with 13 rebounds and six assists and Budenholzer said the star's ability to bring his team-mates into games was crucial.
"I think that's when we are at our best, when Giannis is at his best, it's a little bit of both," he said.
"He's a great playmaker, screener, passer and he does so many great things.
"I think when he's conscious of doing a little bit of everything, he's very capable and that's when he's at his best."
Game 4 of the series is in Milwaukee on Wednesday.
Giannis Antetokounmpo's 41-point outing saw the Milwaukee Bucks to an important 120-100 win over the Phoenix Suns in Game 3 of the NBA Finals.
With the Bucks trailing 2-0, they needed a response at home at Fiserv Forum and Antetokounmpo helped them deliver.
Antetokounmpo finished with 41 points on 14-of-23 shooting, along with 13 rebounds and six assists.
He was the first player to score 40-plus points in back-to-back NBA Finals games since LeBron James in 2016.
The dominant win halved the Suns' series lead ahead of Game 4 in Milwaukee on Wednesday.
Jrue Holiday (21), Khris Middleton (18), Brook Lopez (11) and Bobby Portis (11) also had double digits in points for the Bucks.
Milwaukee put together powerful runs to finish the second and third quarters which set up their win.
They went 16-3 to finish the first half and 16-0 to end the third quarter.
The 15-point deficit marked the first time in these playoffs the Suns had trailed by more than seven at half-time.
Phoenix were unable to get much going as Chris Paul finished with 19 points, while Devin Booker was three-of-14 from the field for his 10 points.
Cam Johnson had 14 points off the bench for the Suns, including a huge dunk in the third quarter.
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