Mavs 'Deeper Than Ever': Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving Dominate Suns; P.J. Washington Locks Down Kevin Durant

The Dallas Mavericks extended their season-high win streak to seven games on Thursday night by defeating the Phoenix Suns, 123-113. Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving were their superstar selves, and P.J. Washington showed off some impressive defense vs. Kevin Durant.

Don't look now, but the Dallas Mavericks are officially streaking as the race toward the NBA playoffs heats up ... and they're starting to look like a legitimate title contender.

Following an extended All-Star break, Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving picked right back up where left off, extending their season-high win streak to seven games with an impressive 123-113 win over the Phoenix Suns. Doncic finished with 41 points on 14-27 shooting to go with nine rebounds, 11 assists and three steals in 38 minutes, and Irving put up 29 points on 11-18 shooting to go with five rebounds, three assists and a steal in 36 minutes while being a team-best +20 on the night.

All-star weekend (4)
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With the win, the Mavs clinched the regular-season tiebreaker over the Suns while also moving ahead of them into sixth-place in the Western Conference standings.

"Feels good," Irving said when asked about his team's recent success. "Just want to keep it up. ... We just started locking into the game plan [against the Suns], and we stopped giving up a lot of easy baskets and started bringing over the help side a little bit more."

The seven-game win streak ties the longest win streak of Jason Kidd's tenure as head coach of the Mavs, and Dallas is now 10 games over .500 at 33-23 for the first time in nearly two years. As good as Doncic and Irving were, it was the defensive effort from P.J. Washington on Suns stars Devin Booker and Kevin Durant that stood out to Kidd.

"I think P.J. is playing great defensively," Kidd said. "He's taking the challenge of [guarding] Durant. He switches onto [Devin Booker]. I thought he got his hands on a lot of [deflections] tonight."

Washington finished with 12 points on 4-10 shooting to go with six rebounds, one assist, one steal and one block while being a +11 in 31 minutes as a starter. Although his offense hasn't gotten off to a hot start, he's getting better with each game, and he's just happy to be in a winning environment for the first time in his career.

"I was just telling somebody in the locker room, I think this is the longest win streak I've ever had in my career," Washington said. "So I'm just happy to be here."

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The Mavs will now head out on a tough four-game road trip with matchups against the Indiana Pacers, Cleveland Cavaliers, Toronto Raptors and Boston Celtics. It will be tough for Dallas to keep its win streak alive on this trip, but with newfound depth and its superstar backcourt playing at such a high level, nothing is off the table at this point.

"We're deep," Kidd said. "This is the first time the Mavs have been deep in a long time. ... [Luka and Kyrie] co-exist quite well. I think it just shows again, our health, our energy, everything's in a positive way right now."


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Dalton Trigg
DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.