Mavs Star Luka Doncic on Blown Lead vs. Suns: ‘We’re Going to Get It Right’

The Phoenix Suns pulled off a major comeback at the Dallas Mavericks' expense to open the 2022-23 season.

The Dallas Mavericks looked fantastic in the opening half of their 107-105 loss against the Phoenix Suns. They even managed to build a 22-point lead at one point. However, the third quarter featured a quick unraveling followed by a fourth-quarter resurgence, then lastly, clutch-time mistakes.

It was about as strong of a first-half performance from the Mavs as they could have hoped. They led 62-45 at the break, with Luka Doncic already having 20 points and five rebounds, along with his backcourt partner, Spencer Dinwiddie, having 13 points. Christian Wood was off to a strong start in his debut, with nine points and four rebounds. 

The Mavs' struggled to execute on both ends significantly in the second half. In the third quarter, they were contained to just 19 points and shot 6-18 from the floor, 3-10 from 3-point range, and turned it over six times. Meanwhile, the Suns scored 31 points with a balanced attack. 

An important factor contributing to poor second half play was that Spencer Dinwiddie got into early foul trouble. There wasn't another reliable secondary ball-handler option to take pressure off Doncic, which made it easier for the Suns to load up on him. 

“That put us in a bind and put a little bit more stress on (Luka) to have to run the offense without having that second ball handler out there,” coach Jason Kidd said. “But we won’t make that as an excuse.

“We’ve got plenty of guys over there that can carry the load, but with Spencer out that just kind of took us out of rhythm there.”

Among the reasons for the Mavs' underwhelming second half performance was their frequent fouling led to the Suns getting into the bonus early. Phoenix went on to shoot 9-10 from the line within the period.

“I think the biggest thing is we were in the bonus early there in the third,” Kidd said. “We talked about it at the half that we knew they were going to come, (Devin) Booker was coming, and they did.

“Our switch attack offense wasn’t up to par. We’ll watch it and see where we can get better.”

There was a sense that the Mavs let up after gaining such a large lead in the early stage of the game. Last season, they struggled at times with failing to hold onto significant leads. They will need to tighten things up for the whole duration of a game going forward. 

“We blew the lead,” Doncic said. “I think we relaxed a little bit. It’s a lot of points, we’re going to get there, we’re going to win. We can’t be blowing leads.”

The Mavs are still building chemistry with newcomers as well as returning players that are filling new roles. With there being 81 more games, they are not placing too much value onto one loss. 

“It’s the first game,” Doncic said. “We have a couple of new guys, it’s 81 games to go and we’re going to get it right … We know how to build the leads, so we’ve got to learn from it.”

One of the potential fundamental flaws of this Mavs team until proven otherwise is their free throw shooting capabilities. The main threats to be in position to take free throws on the team tend to struggle with converting. Doncic went 13-13 in this game, but he experiences inconsistency at times. As for Wood, he is a career 66.4 percent free throw shooter. Against the Suns, the Mavs went 21-34 (61.8 percent) from the line. 

"We talked about (free throws) after the last preseason game,” Kidd said. “If you’re going to get there 30-plus times, you can’t make 21 and shoot 61 percent.

“You can’t win and you can’t be an elite team in this league if you’re not going to make free throws. But it’s a good sign that we’re getting to the line.”

One of the main intriguing elements about the Mavs' performance was that Wood got hot in the fourth quarter by scoring 16 consecutive points to give Dallas a 15-point lead with 8:31 remaining in regulation. 

The Suns chipped away at the deficit to bring  the game within three points (97-94) with 4:49 remaining in the final period. Phoenix was the NBA's most effective clutch team during their 64-win campaign last season. They brought out that execution again as they outscored the Mavs by five in clutch time. 

“We played for 3 1/2 quarters, then we run out of steam,” Kidd said.

When watching the game film, there is both a lot to like and plenty to clean up for the Mavs before Saturday's matchup against the Memphis Grizzlies. It's an 82-game process and there are few who know that better than the team that started 2021-22 with a 16-18 record before ultimately reaching the Western Conference Finals. 

“We just can’t pick up where we left off (last season) – it’s impossible,” Kidd said. “Maybe not for the (world champion Golden State) Warriors, but we have to go through it and we’re excited about this opportunity.”

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