PHOENIX – Collin Gillespie dribbled past a screen from teammate Devin Booker and launched a step-back 3-pointer. As the final seconds of Sunday’s first quarter ticked, all five Phoenix Suns crashed for the offensive rebound. Royce O’Neale grabbed it.

Booker stuck up his right hand, calling for the ball. With the Washington Wizards hustling to reset their defense, he caught O’Neale’s pass on the right wing at Mortgage Matchup Center. Booker had a shot. A clean look.

Instead, the Phoenix star guard fired a quick pass to teammate Grayson Allen in the corner. Allen swished a 3 with two seconds to spare.

There are many themes to this surprising Suns season. Dillon Brooks’ impact and toughness. A second unit that scratches and claws. But at the center has been Booker, not because of his scoring, although that has been present, but because of his unselfishness.

This is not a new wrinkle to Booker’s game. During most of his NBA career, he has been a scorer who preferred the extra pass over the contested shot. But with athletic guard Jalen Green sidelined nearly all season with a hamstring issue, it was assumed Booker would have to shoulder a heavier scoring load. In fact, he has remained steady, and the Suns (24-15) have surged.

In Sunday’s 112-93 win over the Wizards, Booker assisted on Phoenix’s first two field goals, both to O’Neale, the first resulting in a floater, the second a deep 3. Booker finished with 17 points and eight assists in 26 minutes. It set the tone, boosting the Suns to 32 assists and their ninth win in 11 tries.

First-year coach Jordan Ott knew Booker was unselfish, but seeing it up close has brought a different perspective. After a Jan. 4 home win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, during which Booker drained the winning 3 in the final seconds, Ott said his star guard had the “greatest awareness of game management” of any player he’d been around during his near decade in the league.

“The amount of bodies he sees, the amount of contact he has to take, and to be able to continue to make the right play empowers his teammates,” Ott said. “And when (opponents are) that aggressive on the ball, we obviously have an advantage somewhere else. He continues to make the right play, and at the end of the night the ball’s going to find him.”

Booker finished with 24 points and nine points that night against the stifling Thunder, but Ott said if you include the “hockey assists” — credited to the player who makes the pass that leads to the pass that is the assist — Booker probably would’ve had closer to 15 assists.

(A quick dive into hockey assists: Although the stat has been around hockey forever, it seems to have seeped into basketball culture around 2000. Former Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade once said his college coach at Marquette, Tom Crean, valued them more than regular assists. In 2007, Toronto Raptors coach Sam Mitchell said the NBA needed to adopt the hockey assist as an official stat because it promoted ball movement. By then, Cleveland Cavaliers coach Mike Brown was instructing his staff to chart hockey assists.

(Spurs star Tim Duncan summed up the hockey assist in 2014, as only he can. “It’s just about making the right decision at the right time,” he said. “And it’s not always about making the right decision that gets the shot, but the right decision that makes the play happen.”

(Around the same time, the NBA introduced “secondary assists,” which is similar to the hockey assist. Last season, Booker led the league along with Golden State’s Stephen Curry with 1.4 per game. This season, his 1.4 ranks third behind Detroit’s Cade Cunningham and Denver’s Jamal Murray, both at 1.5. OK, back to Sunday night’s win.)

Ball movement doesn’t happen without trust. Even with a mostly new roster, Booker said he saw how hard everyone worked during offseason workouts. It’s turned him into an equal-opportunity distributor. Among Booker’s 231 assists this season, 20.3 percent have gone to Brooks. Not far behind are O’Neale (19.5 percent), big man Mark Williams (16.9) and guard Gillespie (10.8).

This can be contagious. In Sunday’s third quarter, Booker penetrated into the lane, making Washington’s defense collapse. He fired to O’Neale on the right wing, who threw to Brooks on the left side, all alone behind the 3-point arc. The Wizards did not recover. Brooks swished the 3. Hockey assist!

“Book is different,” Ott said. “You talk about the three levels of scoring, the effort he puts forth on the defensive end. (Sunday), I thought his ability to share, make the right play, again, again and again. When your best player does that, it’s easy to follow.”

Phoenix still needs Booker’s scoring. The four-time All-Star has done it at a high level throughout his 11-year NBA career, finishing in the top 10 of scoring four times. He may finish near that level again — especially once he finds his 3-point stroke — but that’s not his intention. Booker said after Sunday’s win that he’s never aspired to lead the NBA in scoring, at least not since he entered the league.

“I’d like to lead in wins, and I’ve done that once in my career,” Booker said, referring to the 2021-22 Suns, who posted 64 wins. “That’s the main thing. Nights like tonight, when you can get a fourth quarter off, your numbers might take a hit, but the longevity of the season, keeping everybody healthy and winning games is the main priority.”