Mavericks vs Suns Final Score: Dallas loses in Phoenix, 114-102

The Dallas Mavericks fell to the Phoenix Suns on the road Saturday night, losing 114-102. Kevin Durant led a balanced effort from the Suns, scoring 31. Luka Doncic was the high point man for Dallas in defeat with 40 points. Dallas falls to 1-1 on the season.

The Suns and Mavericks engaged in a back-and-forth first quarter, with Dallas jumping ahead to a 7-2 lead. Phoenix quickly responded with a burst and took a multiple possession lead while Dallas struggled to shooting the ball. The Mavericks hung within striking distance of the Suns, but bettering shooting from Phoenix helped hold the buffer. Luka Doncic earned seven free throw attempts in the frame, helping Dallas counter the shooting gap and the Mavericks found themselves trailing 28-26 after one quarter.

Phoenix jumped ahead with five quick points and the Mavericks struggled to keep up for much of the quarter. Dallas struggled to string together stops and made baskets and trailed by double digits for all but a few minutes of the second period. Lively picked up his third foul with 4:29 in the frame and head coach Jason Kidd opted to go small with Maxi Kleber at the five. Jusif Nurkic relentlessly attacked the paint, scoring or drawing fouls on four straight possessions to keep Phoenix ahead. Doncic free throws cut the lead to single digits and Dallas found themselves down 63-55 after two periods of basketball.

Sloppy, ref controlled basketball continued into the third with a long stoppage in play due to an overly long review on a flagrant foul. Poor Dallas offense compounded the issue; too many threes and long jumpers and not enough drives at the rim, paired with poor finishing at the rim on those drives. The Mavericks stayed down by multiple possessions and never seemed to eat into the Suns lead. Dallas never looked consistently awake and due to an end of quarter miscue, found themselves down by double digits heading into the fourth, trailing 91-80.

Dallas finally played with some force in the fourth and cut the game down to six, but a stalemate in the middle of the quarter for both teams left the score at 96-90 for multiple possessions. The Suns broke the game open with a pair of threes and a Durant finish. Dallas tried to hang around, closing the lead to 10 points with under four minutes. But the Mavericks couldn’t string together a decent series of possessions and embarrassed themselves in their second game of the season, losing 114-102.

Now, some thoughts…

A lack of attack from Dallas

The Phoenix Suns do not have a rim protector. And yet the Mavericks did not attempt to force the issue in their second game of the season. The shot selection from… just about everyone felt bizarre. Phoenix plays drop coverage with Jusuf Nurkic and Dallas settled for a lot of midrange shots and they didn’t make them. This Dallas team scoring 102 points is pretty ridiculous.

Paging the Maverick bench

The Dallas bench scored 7 points! Naji Marshall is just 2 of 11 from the field this year and his shots look like he’s unfamiliar with the game of basketball. Maxi Kleber scored two of those seven points and he hurt his hamstring so it seems likely we’ll next see him in December. Dereck Lively was the other bench scorer with five points, but he looked as discombobulated as I have seen him in a regular season game. Yes, he grabbed 11 rebounds, but he played poor defense and was not in great defensive rebounding position often while also making bone headed fouls. Jaden Hardy was 0-4 and while he wasn’t bad, if he’s going to play 12 minutes, he needs to be better.

The Western Conference is too good to cede games

We all understand that 82 games is too many. We all understand that sometimes guys have off nights. But in the second game of the regular season, the Dallas Mavericks played a game where they looked like they thought they could turn a switch and simply beat the Suns. That chance never came and now they’re 1-1 after losing to a team playing on the second night of a back to back. I’m sure some fans are mad at Jason Kidd, others the referees, others still a guy like PJ Washington. The bottom line is the Mavericks, as a team cannot afford to lose games due to a lack of urgency. The West is just too loaded.

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