PHOENIX, AZ — “Teams are going to play hard,” Rick Carlisle said in his pregame press conference before the Mavericks regular season debut.
“We have a big job tonight and I think we are going to find out where we are defensively.”
Rick Carlisle has preached about defense and the impact it could have on the Mavericks championship hopes since their first round exit in the playoffs, and tonight’s defensive performance shouldn’t define the potential this team has, but Dallas is off to a solid start with their new found defensive culture.
Dallas started the game slow and struggled to find their rhythm, and didn’t just struggle on the defensive but also struggled with scoring the basketball. Dallas’s offense missed their first 6 shot attempts from the field and gave up easy buckets off of turnovers. It didn’t help the Mavericks got into foul trouble early and were forced to sit Dwight Powell earlier than expected.
Luka Doncic, the anchor of this Mavericks team struggled early and shot 2-9 from the field in his first 10 minutes with his first field goal of the game not coming until the latter part of the first quarter. Dallas’s biggest lead was 2 points which came early in the game, and the Mavericks trailed the Suns for the most of the first quarter until going on 7-0 in the final 90 seconds of the first quarter.
Devin Booker and the Suns had a rocky start to the night as well but were carried mostly by Devin Booker who finished the first quarter with 11 points in 10 minutes of playing time, and Mikal Bridges with 8 points in the same amount of time. Chris Paul struggled for most of the first quarter missing his first 5 field goals but contributed with assists putting his teammates in the perfect position to make shots. Deandre Ayton’s contributions were limited as he saw very little playing time after being in foul trouble early only scoring 2 points.
The Mavericks finished the first quarter shooting 27% from the field and only hitting 2 out of 12 shots from behind the arc, basically if it wasn’t for the Mavericks ability to knock down free throws the lead could have been much larger. All of the starters had minus performances on the night so far and the Mavericks offense came to a screeching halt.
Dallas regained their footing entering the second quarter as Rick Carlisle called upon the players on the Mavericks bench to provide a spark, and they got close but narrowed the Suns lead to 1 after Josh Richardson hit a 3 point shot from the corner. Before the half the Mavericks continued to turn the ball over giving the Suns several chances to score on the other end of the floor making it harder to overcome the deficit.
The Mavericks went into the locker room at halftime trailing the Suns 53-45.
Entering the third quarter the Mavericks began to attack the Suns defensively pressuring Devin Booker and Mikal Bridges, and also received a much needed spark from Luka Doncic, Josh Richardson, and Tim Hardaway Jr, and eventually tied up the game with 5 minutes left in the third quarter, but the Suns continued to maintain their lead and ended the third quarter with a 77-71 lead.
Surprisingly the bench unit for the Mavericks didn’t have their best outing in the first three quarters of this game after playing exceptionally during the preseason, but the second unit played much better in the second half of the game. The reserve backcourt tandem Trey Burke and Jalen Brunson scored a combined 19 points, and assisted Luka and Josh Richardson in their comeback effort in the 4th quarter.
The Mavericks tied the game with less than 3 and a half minutes in the 4th quarter after the Suns led the Mavericks by 12 points entering the fourth quarter. After two Deandre Ayton free throws and two Chris Paul free throws the Suns took the lead 100-96 with just under three minutes left in the game. Luka Doncic forced a foul on the ensuing play and hit both of his free throws and notched his first 30 point game of the season to tie the game. After a quiet three quarters, Chris Paul answered the call when his team needed it the most and drilled a jump shot from the right wing to give the Suns a 3 point lead.
After forcing Luka Doncic to miss from behind the three point line, Devin Booker was called on the iso and hit the go ahead jump shot to increase their lead to 5 points with 40 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. Doncic made good on his miss by converting on a quick basket to narrow the Suns lead to 3 with 20 seconds left, forcing the Mavericks to intentionally foul to get the chance to tie the game. Devin Booker hit both free throws to officially put the game out of reach, winning the game 106-102 handing the Mavericks their first loss of the season.
Dallas’s defensive efforts were much improved in their first outing of the new season, but struggled in their strong suit. This is just the first game and like many teams there are still kinks to workout, but the Mavericks have the tools to improve and we should see this team become more balanced as the season progresses.
