Suns’ great energy enough to overcome off night offensively, beat Mavs

PHOENIX — Monty Williams quickly shut down a reporter, this reporter, calling the Phoenix Suns’ 106-102 win over the Dallas Mavericks a disjointed game.

“They don’t label ’em disjointed wins. We got a win against a really good team,” the head coach said.

True!

Still, the Suns had 19 turnovers, a number Williams called disappointing and said can’t happen against good teams. Devin Booker had eight of them. Deandre Ayton got in foul trouble and then his backup Damian Jones did too. New arrivals Chris Paul and Jae Crowder had off nights.

And yet, the Suns kept themselves in control of the game enough for Paul and Booker to hit back-to-back clutch mid-range jumpers with under 90 seconds to go for a mini 4-0 run to seal it when it mattered.

CP3 and D-Book close out the Mavs in their season opener ☀️ pic.twitter.com/ZMtuoAiasK

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) December 24, 2020

That was thanks to contributions elsewhere through the juice we saw develop in the bubble. That included a huge two-way performance out of Mikal Bridges. The third-year wing provided 15 of his 18 points in the first half off an aggressive mentality offensively, all while guarding Dallas’ star man Luka Doncic.

The Suns bench produced 41 points. Cam Johnson had 15, Cam Payne added 11 and Langston Galloway got 11 in just nine minutes. Because of the foul trouble for Ayton and Jones, along with Dario Saric missing the game, that meant rookie Jalen Smith got called on when it wasn’t even a lock he was going to play.

He responded well in 16 minutes the Suns needed every second of. Smith fit right in with the culture of the team, playing hard constantly, even through some rookie mistakes.

“Jalen really stepped up for us,” Johnson said. “It’s tough … the offseason’s short and being a rookie is hard enough figuring out all the calls and all the small details of the game is really tough. I really give him a lot of credit for stepping up and competing and playing hard and giving us what we needed.”

While Booker’s turnovers were problematic, he had 22 points on 8-of-15 shooting. Paul had his moments where he made his impact on the game felt even in a below average performance. He finished with eight points, four rebounds, five assists and two steals on 3-for-9 shooting. Overall, a strong defensive effort through that juice from Phoenix made it just enough offensively to get a win.

It was a funky game, thanks in large part to Doncic’s uneven play. Whether he got hurt early or wasn’t in peak conditioning yet, the All-NBA guard lost a few steps of explosion and it affected him throughout. With that in mind, as all great players do, he eventually pushed his way through it to 32 points, eight rebounds and five assists on 11-of-26 shooting. The Mavericks go as he and their shooting go, so when Doncic is a bit off and they shoot 9-of-37 (24.3%) from three-point range, it’s usually not their night.

The Suns’ starters never got their rhythm going offensively, and even though the turnovers were bad, they were often times stagnant in terms of movement. They led by just one after one quarter and eight at halftime as Doncic worked through his issues. The game stayed even from that point on, with both teams continuing to stumble as they hit tried to hit their stride, but the Suns were running harder as they stumbled. That was enough to get to closing time with the game up for grabs, and it sure paid off having both Paul and Booker there to ice it.

That source of spirit will win the Suns games like Wednesday’s if it’s as ever-present as it was in the victory. Three Suns players had at least seven rebounds: Crowder (9), Ayton (8) and Bridges (7), while Paul (4) and Booker (5) made it a total of 33 for the starters. Dallas had 39 in total.

There were some botched rotations defensively, but the Suns didn’t have any slippage in their effort, a term Williams uses to emphasize small stretches where the game will get away from them. Bridges reflected on what that constant energy on the defensive end can do for their team.

“It’s confidence,” he said. “We know what we can do on the other end offensively. We have the guys for it. Once we know we get stops, and we’re just like, ‘Alright, we’re missing shots that we work on, some turnovers that we gotta clean up’ but as long as we’re out there guarding and helping each other out, that’s going to be the key for our success: just keep defending as a team.”

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