Devin Booker’s hamstring injury changes the complexion of the first-round series between the high-powered Phoenix Suns and the New Orleans Pelicans.

What was viewed as a walk in the park for the top-seeded Suns is now a dead-even competition as Phoenix visits the Pelicans in Game 3 on Friday night.

Booker is expected to miss the rest of the series after sustaining the injury in the third quarter of Tuesday’s Game 2. He injured his right hamstring while chasing New Orleans’ Jaxson Hayes in transition as the latter scored on a dunk.

Booker grimaced and grabbed the back of his right leg. He said something to teammate Chris Paul and the Suns called timeout with 4:35 left in the quarter.

Booker’s night was done with the Suns trailing by three. The Pelicans outscored Phoenix 48-40 the rest of the way to record a 125-114 road victory.

Suddenly, eighth-seeded New Orleans has life in the series plus homecourt advantage, with three of the potential five remaining games on its own floor.

The Suns opened as 2.5-point Game 3 favorites at BetMGM, but the line has shifted to 1.5 despite Phoenix drawing 80 percent of the spread bets and 78 percent of the handle. The line is also 1.5 at DraftKings, where the Suns have been backed by 77 and 83 percent, respectively.

Booker scored 31 points and made seven 3-point baskets in the first half of Tuesday’s game.

The Suns, who recorded an NBA-best 64-18 record this season, were just 8-6 without Booker in the lineup.

“No matter how you slice it, it’s 1-1,” Phoenix coach Monty Williams said. “I’ll whine and feel bad about (Game 2), but we’re 1-1. It’s a long series. We’ll go to their place, and we’ll do what we do.”

Williams said it would be next man up, which apparently means the role of journeyman shooting guard Landry Shamet will increase. Shamet just returned from a foot injury and didn’t play in Game 1. He had five points in 12 minutes of Game 2.

The fifth-year pro averaged 8.3 points in 69 games (14 starts) this season. The Suns are his fourth team in four seasons.

Forward Cameron Johnson could slide into the backcourt and Aaron Holiday could get some minutes. Holiday hasn’t played in the series.

Regardless, the Pelicans now have a legitimate chance to win the series. Just five No. 8 seeds have upset a No. 1 seed and New Orleans will give it a shot behind the duo of forward Brandon Ingram and shooting guard CJ McCollum.

Ingram scored 18 points on just 6-of-17 shooting in New Orleans’ loss in Game 1 but bounced back with 37 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists on Tuesday. He was 13 of 21 from the field and made all three 3-point attempts.

McCollum made six 3-pointers while contributing 23 points, nine assists and eight rebounds. He scored 25 in Game 1.

Veteran forward Larry Nance Jr. also played with Ingram on the Los Angeles Lakers and said his friend is ready to take over.

“B.I. is him. He’s that guy,” Nance said. “I watch guys like B.I. and CJ and sometimes it’s like they’re playing a different sport. They’re that impressive. To them, that’s normal. Sometimes, the support characters need to uplift those guys and let them know, ‘Hey, you’re really that guy. I believe in you.’

“I just want to make sure (Ingram) knows this whole team is rocking with him.”

Already in his sixth NBA season, this is Ingram’s first time in the postseason. He is in his third season in New Orleans after playing three with the Lakers.

“Throughout this year I had confidence that we would be here,” Ingram said. “I didn’t know what it would look like, but we continued to get better every single day with (coach Willie Green) being positive every single day and helping guys and teaching guys every single day.”

As for the Suns, another disappointing fact about Game 2 is that New Orleans scored 69 second-half points. Typically, it is Phoenix that turns up the heat.

“We normally don’t get outplayed from an intensity standpoint,” Williams said. “You have to give them credit.”

The Over/Under market at both sportsbooks is the lowest among Friday’s three NBA playoff matchups.

It opened at 219.5 at BetMGM but also saw a significant shift to 216.5 points with the Under supported by 56 percent of the bets and 88 percent of the handle. The 216.0-point market at DraftKings has seen the Over backed by 75 percent of the bets while the handle has been nearly split with the Under drawing 49 percent of the action.

–Field Level Media

DeMar DeRozan vowed the Chicago Bulls would improve on their dud of an opener in their Eastern Conference first-round playoff series against the Milwaukee Bucks. Now that he has delivered, the anticipation for an encore is rich.

The Bulls managed to pull off a 114-110 victory at Milwaukee in Game 2 to even the series 1-1 after DeRozan said Chicago would be a better shooting team. Game 3 is in Chicago on Friday night.

Despite that momentum, the Bucks are a 2.5-point favorite at most sportsbooks.

That includes BetMGM, where the line opened at 3.5 but has since shifted with news that Milwaukee’s Khris Middleton is out with a sprained knee. While the Bucks have been backed by 78 percent of the spread bets and 79 percent of the handle, the line had moved to 2.5 by Friday morning.

That’s the same as DraftKings, where the Bucks have been backed by 75 and 78 percent, respectively.

While the Bulls have restored their confidence, the Bucks are dealing with a shuffled lineup prompted by Middleton’s sprained MCL in his left knee. Middleton left Game 2 with 6:49 remaining and did not return. According to multiple reports, he is expected to miss the remainder of the series.

Following a lackluster 86-point effort in the series opener, when they shot 32.3 percent from the field, the Bulls shot 49.4 percent Wednesday. Proving to be an even further man of his word, DeRozan himself was 16 of 31 (51.6 percent) and scored a career playoff-high 41 points.

The Bulls had lost four consecutive games to the Bucks in the regular season and the loss in Game 1 made it look like the losing trend would not end any time soon. Now the Bulls head home for the next two games of the series, while looking to take the lead against the defending NBA champions, who have a big hole to fill.

“It doesn’t matter what you did in the regular season,” DeRozan said. “It’s a brand new start, brand new mindset. You can see it in all the guys. It doesn’t matter if we lost 20 times to (the Bucks), this is a new opportunity to compete and we’ve got to take advantage of it.”

In Game 1, the Bulls’ key trio of DeRozan, Nikola Vucevic and Zach LaVine went 21 of 71 (29.6 percent) from the field. Three days later the group went 33 of 62 (53.2 percent).

“We got our spirit back,” said the Bulls’ Alex Caruso, who scored nine points in Game 2, but more important, played key defense to help Chicago change the complexion of the series.

There figures to be no panic from the Bucks. They have Giannis Antetokounmpo, after all, and it’s not like he laid an egg in Game 2, with 33 points on 11-of-20 shooting, while adding 11 made free throws. He also had 18 rebounds and nine assists.

“Credit to Chicago,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “Especially those early (forced turnovers). The hands and the activity. Getting deflections. Creating turnovers. We got to be sharper.”

The Bucks stuck with the same scheme that worked well in Game 1, and now that the Bulls have made the necessary adjustments, Milwaukee figures to counter again in an attempt to regain control.

How they adjust without Middleton moving forward will prove to be key.

“Obviously Khris is one of the best players on the team,” Antetokounmpo said in the aftermath of Wednesday’s game. “If he’s not able to be with us, it going to be a tremendous loss for us.”

Milwaukee’s Bobby Portis also left Game 2 with a right eye abrasion.

Middleton, who averaged 20.1 points with 5.4 rebounds and 5.4 assists in the regular season, did miss 16 games in the regular season. Milwaukee went 7-9 in those games.

“We got to play better,” Antetokounmpo said. “Execute better. Have more fun. I don’t feel like we were enjoying the game as much as possible.”

This game features the highest Over/Under among the three playoff matchups Friday night.

The market moved from 223.5 points to 222.5 at BetMGM, where the Over has been backed by 57 percent of the bets while the Under has drawn 61 percent of the handle.

The same point total at DraftKings has seen the Over backed by 63 and 53 percent, respectively.

–Field Level Media

Every time Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant changed direction on the court on Wednesday, he encountered a Boston Celtics defender closely monitoring his every move.

It resulted in Durant missing all 10 of his field-goal attempts in the second half of Game 2, while Boston built a 2-0 series lead following a 114-107 victory.

The Celtics look to produce a similar defensive showing Saturday night when the first-round series reconvenes for Game 3 at Brooklyn.

The Celtics won the series opener 115-114 on Jayson Tatum’s buzzer-beater, held Durant to 9-of-24 shooting in that one and forced him into six turnovers. On Wednesday, Boston erased a 17-point deficit and held Durant to 4-of-17 shooting with another six turnovers.

In both games, the Celtics were able to harass Durant into a bad half. In Game 1, they held him to 2 of 12 in the first half, while on Wednesday, Durant was 0 of 10 after halftime and wound up with his fourth-lowest field goal percentage (23.5) in his 153 postseason games.

“It’s on me to just finish it and figure it out,” Durant said. “I’m not expecting my teammates or the defense to give me anything. I just got to go out there and play.

“I’ve just got to come back and play. Get ready to work, just keep grinding. I’m going to be expected to be aggressive throughout the rest of this series, so control some of that stuff and look at film and keep playing.”

Durant is encountering a defense strategy authored by a familiar face in Celtics coach Ime Udoka. He took over for Brad Stevens after being an assistant on Brooklyn coach Steve Nash’s coaching staff where his duties included defense schemes.

“It does help. It’s beneficial,” Udoka said Thursday of being familiar with Durant and the Nets. “You get to know them a little more intimately when you’re coaching them and being with them for a season.”

Said Boston’s Al Horford: “It’s definitely a benefit for our group, because he just has a good sense of the things that they want to do and how they want to play.”

The Celtics are trying to move to the verge of a sweep after an impressive fourth quarter in Game 2. They outscored the Nets 29-17 and held them to 5 of 19 from the field (26.3 percent) in the final 12 minutes.

Boston also got standout showings from Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum in the final 12 minutes. Brown scored 10 of his 22 points while Tatum offset a 5 of 16 performance by scoring seven straight points down the stretch, including a 3-pointer that essentially sealed the victory with about two minutes left.

“This was like an old-fashioned, old-school playoff game,” Tatum said. “You just have to grind it out. That’s what we did, we just stuck with it. Proud of the guys and how we kept responding all game.”

Durant is playing his first postseason game in Brooklyn since last year, when he scored 48 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Milwaukee Bucks. Brooklyn was eliminated anyway.

While the Nets are hoping to see a similar showing from Durant, they are hoping he has more help from Kyrie Irving. Irving scored 39 in the series opener but on Wednesday he was held to 10 points Wednesday on 4-of-13 shooting, his third-lowest scoring total in a postseason game.

“It’s not all on Kev. I take accountability. Everybody on our team takes accountability,” Irving said.

Celtics big man Robert Williams plans to play a limited role in Game 3, which would be less than four weeks removed from knee surgery. Williams, a 6-10 forward, is a defensive force for the Celtics. He had surgery in March 30 to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee.

Williams averaged 10.0 points, 9.6 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game in 61 regular-season games.

The initial timeline for Williams’ return was 4-6 weeks.

Injured Nets guard Ben Simmons is not expected to play in Game 3 but ESPN reported he plans to play in Game 4 on Monday.

–Field Level Media