Suns Outlast Mavericks, 130-126
The Phoenix Suns improved to 3-0 with Kevin Durant in the lineup after defeating the Dallas Mavericks, 130-126. Durant scored a game-high 37 points while shooting 12-17 from the field (including 3-5 from three point range) and 10-10 from the free throw line. He also had seven rebounds and three assists. Devin Booker scored 36 points on 15-25 field goal shooting (including 1-3 from three point range), and he contributed a game-high 10 assists, nearly matching the assist total (15) of the isolation-heavy Mavericks. Ish Wainright scored 12 points off of the bench in just 14 minutes while shooting 4-6 from the field, including 4-5 from beyond the arc. Chris Paul had a solid but quiet game (11 points, seven assists, six rebounds), while Deandre Ayton grabbed a game-high 16 rebounds and made the most of his limited offensive opportunities (nine points on 4-6 field goal shooting). Thanks mainly to Ayton, the Suns dominated the boards, 41-31.
Luka Doncic led the Mavericks with 34 points, but he shot just 8-23 from the field while amassing five turnovers to go along with four assists and a team-high nine rebounds. Kyrie Irving scored 30 points on 10-19 field goal shooting, and he topped the Mavericks with seven assists. Tim Hardaway Jr. (21 points) and Christian Wood (17 points) provided 38 of Dallas' 48 points off of the bench.
The Mavericks humiliated the top-seeded Suns in a game seven rout last year to advance to the Western Conference Finals, but both teams recently made significant personnel changes. The Suns gave up Mikal Bridges, Jae Crowder, Cam Johnson, and four first round draft picks to acquire Durant, while the Mavericks shipped out Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, a 2029 first round draft pick, and multiple second round draft picks to acquire Irving. Both teams sacrificed depth and potential future resources to try to win now. It will be very interesting to see how those decisions pan out not only in the 2023 playoffs but in the years to come. Losing Jalen Brunson in free agency last summer hurt the Mavericks, and they gave up a lot of value with the hope that Irving can not only replace Brunson but augment what Brunson provided during last year's playoff run. The Suns desperately need Durant to provide the clutch scoring that was missing during their 2021 and 2022 playoff runs, and they will also need for him to be active defensively to make up for the losses of Bridges and Crowder, two excellent defensive players.
It was a treat to listen to Hubie Brown do the color commentary for this game. I believe that his most recent game prior to this was Milwaukee's 128-99 rout of Miami on Friday February 24. Brown made several timely and most relevant observations. For instance, both teams frequently complained about the officiating. Brown said that within the first five to seven minutes of a game you can figure out--as a coach or as a player--how that game is being officiated. Whether or not you agree with how the game is being officiated, once you know what is happening it is important to adjust to it, not complain, and not cost your team points by getting technical fouls. It is vital to not let the officiating style throw your game off, regardless of whether the game is being called very tightly, or the game is being called very loosely. Luka Doncic in particular could benefit from hearing (and heeding) Brown's counsel on this topic, as Doncic wastes far too much time and energy complaining to the officials.
Regarding how to incorporate newly acquired players into the rotation in the middle of the season, Brown emphasized that newly acquired players must accept the game plan at both ends of the court while also adjusting to any differences in style between their previous coaching staff and their current coaching staff.
Throughout the game, Brown was on point in detecting and explaining momentum changes. He also broke down the strategic decisions made by both coaching staffs.
It is obvious that the Mavericks have a shortage of good defensive players, and that the Mavericks lack size. Jeff Van Gundy recently--and correctly--noted that small teams rarely win championships. If you watch the Mavericks closely then you will notice that Coach Jason Kidd--a great defensive player during his long Hall of Fame career--uses various schemes and rotations to compensate for Dallas' lack of size and dearth of plus defenders. Versus the Suns, the Mavericks packed the paint to cut off driving lanes and midrange shots for Durant and Booker, willingly conceding three point shots to Josh Okogie, who shot 3-13 from the field overall while missing all eight of his attempts from beyond the arc. In the second half, Wainright punished the Mavericks' scheme by making the same open three pointers that Okogie had been missing. One could call this defense "He with us"--that is how Jalen Rose refers to the thought process behind consistently leaving an opposing player wide open--and if the Suns' role players make those open shots during the playoffs then the Suns will be very difficult to guard. The Mavericks' offense mainly consists of Doncic or Irving isolating to either score or else generate an open three point shot for someone else. The playoff games that the Mavericks win this year will feature Doncic and Irving each scoring 25-plus points while the team makes at least 15-20 three pointers, while the playoff games that the Mavericks lose will feature Doncic or Irving being contained while the three point shooters are off target. The Mavericks are unlikely to be involved in--let alone win--low scoring defensive slugfests.
The Suns' main weakness is lack of depth. The drop off when Durant is not on the court is dramatic. That is a concern because Durant has not been able to stay healthy for the past several years: he has played in 55 games or less each season since 2018-19, including missing the entire 2019-20 season because of a ruptured right Achilles tendon suffered in game five of the 2019 NBA Finals. Durant has not made a full playoff run past the second round since he led the Golden State Warriors to the 2018 championship (the Warriors reached the 2019 NBA Finals, but injuries limited Durant to playing in just 12 of the Warriors’ 22 playoff games). The current iteration of the Suns led by Booker, Paul, and Ayton squandered a 2-0 NBA Finals lead over the Milwuakee Bucks in 2021 and then suffered the aforementioned epic game seven collapse versus the Mavericks last season after posting the NBA's best regular season record. Paul is almost 38 years old, and he has been injury-prone throughout his career, but it is worth noting that even the 26 year old Booker has hardly been a paragon of durability. It is reasonable to expect that both Paul and Booker will miss some playoff games, which puts an even greater onus on Durant to be available and highly productive.
Labels: Chris Paul, Dallas Mavericks, Deandre Ayton, Devin Booker, Hubie Brown, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Luka Doncic, Phoenix Suns
posted by David Friedman @ 8:05 AM
17 Comments:
Phoenix looks very good so far but they have not played against a good defense yet. There is no question they can win a shootout with anyone, particularly a team like Dallas, but the question that needs to be answered is whether or not they can maintain that scoring pace against elite two-way teams like Milwaukee and Boston (and arguably the "full strength" versions of Memphis or Golden State, which may not exist this season), because it already seems clear that those teams will be able to score at a decent rate against Phoenix.
Durant and Ayton are the Suns' best defensive players now, but both are more good defenders than great ones, and neither has yet demonstrated consistent, sustained effort on that end. Durant has had promising stretches (including a run with Brooklyn prior to his injury) of being consistently engaged but has not seemed particularly interested thus far in Phoenix, and Ayton inexplicably seems to take every fourth or fifth game "off" as both a defender and rebounder.
Chris Paul was always a little overrated defensively but while he was once almost worthy of his reputation he is now very nearly a liability. Devin Booker plays hard but not smart on defense, and lacks the physical tools to be a real option agains the league's best scorers.
The Suns seem to be hoping that Okogie or Torrey Craig will be the answer but I think you would be hard pressed to find a title team whose best defensive wing was not significantly better than Okogie or Craig, so I am skeptical that this plan is going to work out for them.
It will be interesting to see if Phoenix and Golden State might meet in the first round. It may be the best thing for Phoenix if they do. If there is one surefire way to get Durant to give it his all on both ends, I have to assume it would be the opportunity to shut up the GSW fanbase he feels did not adequately appreciate him.
Dallas is a paper tiger and does not have the defensive personnel to win four playoff series, likely all on the road, without truly aberrant help from the injury gods.
Anonymous:
I agree that the Suns must prove that they can score productively and efficiently against an elite defense during a playoff series, and they must also prove that they can be effective defensively.
The Mavericks as currently constructed are not a championship contender, but they can be a dangerous team in any given playoff series because Doncic can dominate for several games and he is not afraid of the big moments, and because Kidd will get the most out of his limited roster. Also, I don't trust Irving as the number one option, but as a number two option he can be dangerous because he can erupt for a 40 point game or a 20 point quarter, and he also is not afraid of the big moments. Irving is injury-prone, flaky, and generally a defensive liability (though he has had some positive moments at that end of his court during his career) but his talent as a shot maker and passer is undeniable.
Not sure what the Mavs are doing. Irving is a headcase and can't complement Doncic in the right ways.
The Suns should win, if their stars stay healthy, but that's obviously a big if. And they all have to play 35+ minutes every game. So, I'm not liking their chances. But, there's no other formidable team in the West.
Durant actually played in the 2019 Finals, that's when he tore his Achilles.
Anonymous:
It appears that Durant will be out for at least most of the remaining regular season games after spraining his ankle during pre-game warmups (which is not a great sign regarding his durability).
I agree that no West team looks like a dominant powerhouse at the moment, but I could see some of these teams getting hot during the postseason. Denver has been consistent all season, and if Jokic's supporting cast stays healthy (plus Jokic, of course, but he seems to be durable) this team is probably better than many people may think. The Suns obviously have potential, along with a lot of question marks. Sacramento has had an excellent regular season, but lack of playoff experience could be a problem.
You are correct about Durant's 2019 playoff run. I have edited that portion of the article's original text to accurately reflect how many playoff games he played, and when he ruptured his Achilles.
The West team I think has perhaps the widest range of outcomes is Golden State.
On the one hand they're barely above .500 and can't seem to win on the road.
On the other hand they've been extremely snakebitten all season and are plausibly significantly better than their record when fully healthy. They also appear to be set up to be pretty close to fully healthy by playoff time though naturally that could change at any moment and who knows what's up with Wiggins.
On the first hand again a team with a terrible road record is probably not the team that's going to be able to win four straight road playoff series.
On the second hand again the Warriors currently have the longest ever streak of winning at least one road playoff game per series.
There's also the datapoint that despite all their struggles their presumptive starting lineup is still statistically the best five-man lineup in the league per 100 possessions. And adding Gary Payton II back should help the bad bench situation that was already improving (though it's looked very bad again the last few games).
I just don't know what to make of them. I would not be shocked to see them drummed out via Play In but I would also not be shocked to see the win the NBA title in reasonably dominant fashion. There's no other team I feel has that wide of a range of outcomes.
Clippers probably a distant second on that front but I have a pretty hard time envisioning them making it all the way. WCF feels like their best-case scenario to me.
Anonymous:
In general I agree with the notion that the Warriors at full strength are better than their record, but I also think that they benefitted from some good fortune during last year’s title run. They are more likely to win a championship than any other team with a similarly mediocre record, but I don’t think that they are very likely to win this year’s championship. I think that Milwaukee, Boston, and Denver are the elite teams right now, barring injuries or unforeseen circumstances.
The Clippers have a lot of untapped potential that they may never fulfill.
I don't know too many champions that don't benefit from some good fortune at some point. I don't remember GS in 2022 really benefiting that much though. And they were obviously the best team throughout the playoffs. It wasn't like Milwaukee in 2021 benefiting substantially from key injuries to the Nets or the Lakers benefiting substantially in 2020 from the bubble and key injuries to basically every contender and getting to cakewalk to the title.
Milwaukee/Boston are a lot more than their best player. They are the most complete teams. I'm not sold much on Denver, but the West has nothing currently resembling a true contender to them currently. So, they should make the Finals. And who knows how healthy the East champion will be at that point. The Clippers aren't close to a contender currently. They'll be fortunate to miss the play-in game right now.
Anonymous:
I agree that most champions have some good fortune, but the Warriors came out of the third seed, did not have to face the first seed in the West, faced the second seed sans Morant, did not have to face defending champion Milwaukee, and benefitted from Tatum’s injury or slump (either way, he was not his normal self in the Finals).
Diffo Anon here from the last one but I was one of the earlier ones.
I think GSW had a pretty normal amount of luck for a title team. The biggest thing was that they were fairly healthy, which always helps. The second biggest thing I actually think was Middleton being out, because healthy Milwaukee was the one team that felt like it could have beaten them.
I don't think Ja was a big deal. They'd already beaten him on his home court and were in the process of blowing him out of the gym in theirs by the time he went down.
I didn't really think Phoenix was a threat to GSW either but sure, they'd have been tougher than Dallas. But I know you know that playing a Chris Paul team deep in the playoffs is a good recipe for going deeper.
I don't think it's fair to blame Tatum's slump on anything other than the Warriors, though. He was fine the round before, but Wiggins was a really tough matchup him and they forced him into a lot of contested shots at the rim, and took advantage of his sloppy ballhandling whenever he tried to drive which I think got in his head. He was also shooting way above his usual on threes so I think it's tough to argue he was injured in a way that was messing up his jumpshot.
Anyway, they would need similar levels of luck this year. Their health seems like much more of a question mark than it was last year obviously but as far as other teams taking themselves off the table injuries to KD and Luka and whatever's going on in Memphis seem like a pretty good start. Boston has looked very mortal recently as well. I think Milwaukee is a better team in a vacuum than GSW but I also feel like Milwaukee always has at least one series in the playoffs where they go inexplicably ice cold on open jumpers and if that happens against a healthy GSW that's probably enough to swing things.
I don't think Denver or Sac can beat GSW if both teams are at full strength but I think Denver and Sac are more likely to be at full strength.
The 3rd seed is a top seed. I wouldn't call it luck not facing the top seed in the West if they lose to another team. That other team(Dallas) beating them(Phoenix) must be better then. And GS couldn't face the top seed in the East(Miami), the defending champs(Milwaukee), and the best team in the East(Boston) all. Boston beat Milwaukee and Miami, Boston was the best team. Not facing Milwaukee isn't luck. Milwaukee also has recent history of not playing to the potential.
The little luck that could be called luck was facing Memphis with Morant only playing 3 games(he wasn't totally out like you said). However, Morant is a tiny player and is injury prone, so not sure how much luck that is. Also, I believe Memphis did better in the regular season sans Morant. Memphis also performed better in the 3 games sans Morant vs GS than the 3 games with Morant vs GS. They outscored GS sans Morant. Unfortunately, that was mostly from one game.
And not sure we can use luck from an injury to Tatum, which I had no idea he had nor does it seem like you know for sure either. He played 41mpg in the Finals, can't be much of an injury. A slump isn't luck. GS played good defense and caused the slump or Tatum just stunk it up.
Anonymous:
We can agree to disagree. I am not going to examine the fortune/lack of fortune of seven decades' worth of NBA champions, but at no point last season did the Warriors look like the best team in the NBA up until the point that they defeated the Boston Celtics while Tatum played well below his normal level. If you think that Tatum's performance was mostly or entirely because of Wiggins, so be it, but that would be the first time in Wiggins' career that he locked down a player of that caliber in a playoff series, let alone the NBA Finals. I suspect that Tatum missed more uncontested or lightly contested paint shots in that series than he has in any other playoff series in his career.
We don't know how Memphis would have performed against G.S. over a seven game series with a healthy Morant. We have seen many teams overcome series deficits--including the Warriors in last year's NBA Finals--so I don't put much stock into what happened in part of that series, and I put even less stock in Memphis' regular season record sans Morant. I believe that Morant over seven games would have caused major problems for the Warriors.
Anonymous:
The Warriors finished three games behind the Grizzlies and 11 games behind the Suns. I did not call the Warriors' path "lucky"; I called it fortunate. It was fortunate for them to avoid facing the defending NBA champion as well as the top seed in the West, and to face the second seed in the West with Morant missing most of the series. Those are all fortunate events from the Warriors' perspective. Considering the Warriors' track record since Durant left, it was reasonable to assume that without that good fortune the Warriors would not have won.
The Bucks already have won one NBA title with Giannis, so I disagree with the notion that the Bucks play below their potential. Those are good words to describe teams that have been led for the past decade by Chris Paul and by James Harden.
I don't know the extent of Tatum's injury. There are credible reports that he was hampered by injury in the NBA Finals. The amount of minutes that he played is a credit to his toughness more so than evidence that he was not injured. Tatum has not made a big deal out of it or made excuses, but the number of uncontested or lightly contested paint shots that he missed was very unusual (and very fortunate for the Warriors).
Fortunate/fortune are synonyms for lucky/luck. The other commenter mentioned luck, too. So, I/we are confused what you mean then.
You implied the #3 seed isn't that good(which Milwaukee was as well and Milwaukee won 2 fewer games during the regular season than GS), so we'll guess agree to disagree on that.
I would call it more fortunate not to face Boston who proved to be the best team in the East rather than to not face Milwaukee. Morant missed half the series, and again Memphis actually performed better without him and GS was up 2-1 when Morant played. I wouldn't call either of these that fortunate, definitely not more fortune than most title teams get.
GS had considerable injuries since Durant left, including Durant being injured. Even in 2022, GS top 3 players(Curry, Thompson, Green) combined to miss 104 regular seasons but managed 53 wins still. So, it's more than reasonable to assume GS was much better than their regular season record implied which was still 3rd best in the league and which they proved in the playoffs.
Milwaukee needed 3 years of #1 seeds to just make the Finals once. They've definitely underachieved overall regardless if they managed to win one title. Some other good East teams in 2019-2020, but it's not like they're having to face a team of 2015-2019 GS stature in the East. And then bounced in the 2nd round last year. Now, they needed a great deal of fortune to just get past the 2nd round in 2021 with major key injuries to the Nets. Paul maybe a little, but Harden's teams have performed well overall. They lost to GS in the playoffs 4x from 2015-2019, that's not underperforming, including being up 3-2 in the 2018 WCF at the height of GS powers. GS only lost 2 series during that time span, which they wouldn't have without injuries/suspensions.
Seems like a lot of speculating about Tatum just to minimalize GS title. I also doubt any player was fully healthy at that stage of the season. I'm sure GS had players injured too that also aren't making a big deal of it. Tatum just played poorly, even FT shooting. Though he shot exceptionally well from 3, which is bizarre if he was actually that injured.
Couple back Anonagain,
Could you not apply those same sorts of claims to nearly every recent champion, though?
Was Giannis not fortunate to draw an injured Nets team in the second round, and to avoid the top seeds in both conferences as well as the Lakers (defending champs), Clippers, and Warriors due to various injuries?
The year before, were the Lakers not fortunate to have a several month break before the Bubble, to evade the Clippers (choke) and Warriors (injuries) in the West, to be spared facing any of the East's top four seeds in the Finals, and to face a Heat team dealing with injuries of varying severity to all three of their best players?
The year before that, were the Raptors not exceedingly fortunate to face a Warriors team missing Kevin Durant nearly entirely and Klay Thompson for both one full game (TOR's biggest win of the series) and then again for the crucial second half a close-out game in which he'd been skewering them (30 points on 12 shots before his injury, GSW +5 in his minutes in a game they ultimately lost by 4)?
The year before that, the Warriors were famously fortunate to see Chris Paul injured for the two could-be elimination games and Houston to furthermore go almost parodically ice cold from three in Game 7.
The 2017 Warriors were not particularly fortunate in terms of playoff luck/opponents, but they were exceedingly fortunate that an unusual cap spike unlike any other season in NBA history blessed them with Kevin Durant essentially for free.
The 2016 Cavaliers of course were fortunate to see Draymond Green get himself suspended, to see reigning Finals MVP and designated Lebron-annoyer Andre Iguoudala slowed by a back injury, and starting center Andrew Bogut injured for the final two games of the series. They were also fortunate to face a hobbled Steph Curry, at least if we go by the logic you've used above to suggest that Tatum must be hobbled because his numbers were so much worse than usual (the 2016 Finals are cleanly Steph's worst series of his career, even moreso relative to his other Finals appearances).
And certainly the 2015 Warriors were fortunate to encounter a Cleveland team dealing in the Finals with injuries to both Love and Irving, no?
I do not wish to go back further but looking at the champs during the "Warriors Era" it doesn't seem to me that the 2022 Warriors were meaningfully more fortunate than most other champions, and certainly no more fortunate than the average champion.
Anonymous:
I have never disputed that many champions experience some degree of good fortune. The distinction that I made above is "Considering the Warriors' track record since Durant left, it was reasonable to assume that without that good fortune the Warriors would not have won." In other words, there is a difference between the favorite team experiencing good fortune, and a team that was not favored to win experiencing good fortune.
Regarding the seasons that you cited, 2020 and 2021 were unusual in general because those seasons were shortened by COVID-19 and not played under regular conditions (most notably the "Bubble," but also the use of health and safety protocols, and other alterations to travel/scheduling beyond the reduction in the number of games).
In 2019, the Raptors had the second best record in the East and were just two games behind having the best record in the entire league. They won one more game than the Warriors. So, you are correct that they were fortunate to not have to face Durant for the entire Finals, but the Raptors were closer to the top of the league for the entire season than last year's Warriors were.
In 2018, the Warriors benefited from two predictable occurrences: Chris Paul being injured or worn down as the playoffs progress, and a James Harden team melting under pressure. I do not consider something that is predictable/usual to be "fortunate" in the sense that I am applying that term in this discussion.
In 2017, all teams benefited from (or had the opportunity to benefit from) the spike in the salary cap. Also, the Warriors comfortably had the league's best record, so they were expected to win the title. In contrast, the 2022 Warriors were not the league's best team for most of the season.
I agree that the 2016 Cavaliers benefited from good fortune, though I would argue that Green's suspension is "normal" in the sense that he frequently engages in actions/outbursts that cause him to be unavailable. Also, until 2022 Curry was never the best player throughout the course of an NBA Finals, so him being less than the best player in the 2016 Finals is more typical than fortunate over the course of his Finals career.
I agree that the 2015 Warriors benefited from good fortune, but they were also the best team throughout the regular season.
In sum, (1) I never said that the 2022 Warriors were the only champion that had good fortune, (2) I never said that they had more good fortune than any other champion, and (3) I am less inclined to consider good fortune to be a significant factor if the team that experienced it was already on course to win the title anyway.
It's maybe worth noting in this argument about good fortune that the 2022 Warriors started 27-6 so "at no point last season did the Warriors look like the best team in the NBA" feels like some really revisionist history. That's 40% of the season where they were clipping along at a 67 win pace. Even at the 50 game mark they were 37-13, still on a 61 win pace, and then they kinda crashed back down to Earth for a bit mostly on account of injuries.
Only team who was winning as much as they were through most of the season was Phoenix, but since you're saying above that Chris Paul dependably sucks in the playoffs (which I agree with, btw), probably fair to say that for that stretch of the (majority of the) season, the Warriors looked like best team from a "who's gonna win it all" perspective.
As for the larger argument about good fortune, they were only a three seed due to injuries; with a healthy Curry they were winning at a 58 win pace (and with him + Draymond much higher than that), which would have been good for second in the West.
Additionally, while they were "only" a three seed in the West, they were also the three seed overall, with a better record than every Eastern team.
Of the last ten champs before them, that's better relative to competition than the Bucks (6th best record), and the same as the Lakers, '12 Heat, '16 Cavs and '18 Warriors. Only the '19 Raptors, '15 & '17 Warriors, and '14 Spurs were "true" Top 2 seeds.
So I dunno man, they got similar injury luck to most recent champs, had a pretty normal overall seeding for a recent champ (and were obviously better than their record besides, given injury context), and beat two more-or-less full strength teams in the last couple rounds.
Chicago:
You are correct that I overstated my case by including the words "at no point" in my statement about last season's Warriors.
Regarding the larger topic at hand--fortune enjoyed by various NBA champions--I understand your perspective about the Warriors of recent seasons.
My perspective about the Warriors is that, prior to last season's Finals, the Warriors sans Durant had won one title--and they won that title against a Cleveland team missing Love and Irving. Since 2019, the Warriors had consistently been injury-prone, and often did not pose much of a threat in the playoffs, let alone a credible threat to win a title. So, regardless of their fast start, it seemed like a bit of a stretch to assume that they were the championship favorites--and it seemed like they would need to overcome the league-leading Suns, the up and coming Grizzlies, and the defending champion Bucks to win the title. Instead, the Suns collapsed at home in game seven, the Grizzlies lost their best player versus the Warriors, and the Bucks sans Middleton bowed to the Celtics. I consider all of those events to be very fortunate for a Warriors team whose nucleus sans Durant had won one title since 2015. From my perspective, the Durant-led Warriors were a mini-dynasty, and the Durant-less Warriors were/are a very good team that had one title to their credit prior to coming back from down 2-1 versus the Celtics.
In short, the Warriors' four titles do not put them two thirds of the way to matching the Jordan-Pippen Bulls, at least from my perspective.
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