Suns survive another tight win, keep executing late vs. Mavs

Some teams need to go through a whole NBA season to figure out how to win games down the stretch. Some teams, like last year’s Phoenix Suns, never even figure it out.

This iteration already has it down a few weeks before Thanksgiving, with Friday’s 114-113 victory over the Dallas Mavericks marking Phoenix’s latest crunch-time win.

The Suns are now 7-0 in games designated as clutch time, when the margin is within five points and the game time is under five minutes. They improve to 8-1 overall on the season and have won seven straight.

While Kevin Durant has led them in most of those instances and he did start off that window with a pair of 3s, this was more of the sloppy and disjointed variety of winning time that occurs frequently.

He and Dallas’ Kyrie Irving were putting on a shot-making clinic that would qualify as an art exhibition before things got weird.

The cinema that was unfolding developed into some of the aforementioned chaotic flow, and the crucial segment came when Jusuf Nurkic stripped Irving on ball screen defense in a tie game, giving the Suns the ball with 36 seconds left. Durant got an open 3 on the sideline out of bounds play but missed it. Bradley Beal, however, rose up on the offensive glass to get a partial piece of the ball so it landed in Nurkic’s hands for a free dunk to go up two with 31.4 seconds remaining.

Mavericks guard Luka Doncic created a free lob on their possession, tying it and seemingly giving the Suns the last possession of the game. During it, Royce O’Neale screened for Durant to get to a floater he had been making earlier in the night, but strong-armed it, only for Nurkic to get another big offensive rebound and draw a shooting foul at 0.8 seconds to go.

Nurkic made one of two, and after a Dallas timeout to advance the ball, Doncic’s touch shot from beyond 30 feet landed short.

While Durant ended up at 26 points on 8-of-14 shooting, six Suns players recorded at least 13 points, including 18 off the bench for O’Neale and a season-high 17 for Tyus Jones. Devin Booker and Beal combined to shoot 2-of-15 from 3 and were 11-of-30 in the game as a whole.

This was rinse, repeat for what we’ve seen now nine games into this Suns season. The top-tier spurt of play came in a first quarter they shot 8-of-13 from 3 in to lead by 10. From there, Phoenix was mostly just fine and did enough defensively to remain in the game before executing in crunch time.

The start of the game was one of those nights facing Dallas when the duo of Doncic and Irving were solely generating offense individually, the majority of which didn’t include paint touches. When the two did, it was not to spark ball movement, and that really simplifies what a defense has to do against them. The Mavericks can fall into this trap easily, especially when Doncic is dealing with an ailment like his recent groin injury.

That was the story in the first half before Doncic and Irving led a 15-2 run out of halftime to tie the game at 65. Both found a rhythm, so it became about Phoenix’s initial 1-on-1 defense and rotations after that. Outside of Klay Thompson, Dallas has shooters the Suns are totally fine helping off, especially with the poor starts to the season from deep for Spencer Dinwiddie, Quentin Grimes and Naji Marshall. Marshall’s driving game was a difference-maker, as he scored nine of his 18 points in the third quarter.

Phoenix was 3-of-17 from 3 in the middle quarters, a stretch that included a decent downtick in the quality of those looks. The Suns weren’t able to produce enough offensively outside of that, amounting to 51 points over that timeframe to make it yet another tight one.

Doncic and Irving each got a bucket in the first two minutes of the final frame, indicating this was going to be tough sledding for the Suns if the shooting woes persisted. They missed their first two attempts, making it appear this would come down to either Durant or Booker getting hot to save the outcome.

While Durant rested in the front half of the fourth quarter, a key two-possession swing came when Beal (who was struggling) was unable to score on Mavericks center Dwight Powell and then Jones (who was great in this game) turned down an open 3 and driving lane. Dallas scored after that Jones possession to go up six with 7:39 left and Durant checking back in.

Beal then drilled a pivotal 3, Phoenix’s second 3-pointer of the second half, to cut it to three. Marshall air-balled a 3 for Dallas before a Jones floater made it a one-score game. It was a necessary response to not let Dallas take complete control before crunch time got underway, where Phoenix has been nails thus far and continued to be.

Beal scored two more field goals, and then it was officially clutch time, so Durant on cue converted on two 3s to match seven straight Irving points to make it a one-point game at 3:17 to go before it all got a bit kooky.

Doncic (30 points) and Irving (29) combined for 59 points.

Nurkic contributed 15 points, 10 rebounds, two steals and one turnover, his third straight very good game.

Booker was a late addition to the injury report on Friday afternoon with an illness that had him listed as questionable. In what is now a full decade of covering Booker, I can’t remember ever seeing him listed with an illness, and a quick search of past injury reports didn’t yield any results, either. He has absolutely played through some rough colds and such over his years, so for this to come up and leave his status in doubt at one point should speak to how under the weather he was.

He added 12 assists (with zero turnovers) and six rebounds to his poor shooting night, while Beal’s 6-of-17 outing for 15 points was his worst performance in a season he’s been terrific in to begin the year.

Dallas’ depth was seriously put to the test in this one. Starting center Dereck Lively II (right shoulder sprain) and P.J. Washington (right knee sprain) both recently got injured, while Maxi Kleber (right hamstring strain) has only played two games this season and Dante Exum (right wrist surgery) has yet to debut. This had the Mavericks extend into the end of their bench that includes Powell, who went from their starting 5 to their fourth-string 5, and former 2023 first-round pick Olivier-Maxence Prosper.

Prosper did not play in the second half and Dallas only logged two reserves 10-plus minutes: Dinwiddie (28) and Powell (25). Doncic (42) and Irving (41) went north of 40.

Ryan Dunn did not play after spraining his left ankle. Suns sideline reporter Amanda Pflugrad reported on the television broadcast that Dunn hopes to play in Sunday’s home game against the Sacramento Kings and that Dunn was moving well in shootaround. Josh Okogie got the ninth man spot in the rotation. Phoenix has dialed back to just that amount after backup point guard Monte Morris logged back-to-back DNPs in the last two games.

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