PHOENIX — Chris Paul hit his first six shots of the fourth quarter. And the game was over.
The leader of the Phoenix Suns went into assassin mode in the final period, completely taking the game over, and turning what was previously a tightly contested Game 2 against the Dallas Mavericks, into a Suns blowout win, to take a 2-0 lead in the series. The Suns won, 129-109.
Game 3 will be in Dallas on Friday night, at 8:30 pm CT.
Paul entered the fourth quarter with 14 points, and then proceeded to double his total in the first 4:56 of the period. He buried a triple to start the onslaught, doubling the Suns three-point lead, to establish a 92-86 Phoenix edge.
Then, Paul knifed through the Mavs defense for a layup, to put the Suns up nine. He made a series of sensational moves, dancing in front of Mavs forward Maxi Kleber, and crossing him up to hit a fadeaway jumper. Then, a floater that put Phoenix up 10.
Paul then scored on consecutive trips down the floor, finishing by drawing a foul on Mavs guard Luka Doncic to complete a three-point play, and put the Suns up by 15, at 108-93.
Paul went nuclear. And the game was over.
“He’s tough man, he’s a hell of a player," Doncic said after the game. "He’s been in this league a lot of years; he knows what this is about so he’s very tough. But like I said, we have to do a better job with him.”
Paul finished the night with those 28 points, on 11-16 shooting, along with eight assists and six rebounds.
Devin Booker then came on to finish what Paul had started, hitting three-pointers on three successive Suns trips down the floor, to build the lead to 24 at 119-95. Booker finished with 30 points on the night.
"We’ve had some bad luck against them in the fourth quarter for whatever reason," Mavs head coach Jason Kidd said. "Fatigue or not being able to make plays or timely shots, but they took advantage of that in the fourth and they had 40 points. And when you look at that, CP and Book, they took turns. One took the third quarter, the other one took the fourth quarter and we had no answer.”
Luka Doncic led the Mavs once again, finishing with 35 points on 13-22 shooting. He had 24 of those 35 points in the first half, as the Mavs led by two at halftime. But Phoenix outscored the Mavs by eight in the third quarter, before the onslaught in the fourth.
“He had a great game, but no one else showed," Kidd said of Doncic. "We’ve got to get other guys shooting the ball better. We can’t win with just him out there scoring 30 a night. Not at this time of the year. And we’re playing the best team in the league, so we’ve got to get other guys going."
The Suns seemingly hunted for Doncic all night, on the Mavs end of the floor. Routinely, they were able switch Doncic onto the ballhandler, and then take advantage, scoring at a dangerously high clip, and propelling the second half barrage.
“We’ve just got to play better defense. That’s it," Doncic said. "It’s mostly me, but I think we’ve got to adjust our shots better, like the way we did in Utah. Obviously, this isn’t the same team but I think we adjusted shots better against Utah. We tried to get CP to the basket so we can rotate out but we’ve got to fix that."
Kidd addressed the Suns hunting Doncic, as well.
"We've got to do a better job of helping him," Kidd said. "They're bringing him up into everything. We knew that coming into the series. In the last series, we did a better job of protecting one another, not just Luka. So we've got to get back to protecting one another for Game 3 back at home."
The Mavs executed precisely none of what they wanted to early on in the basketball game, again falling in an early hole, as the Suns jumped out to leads of 9-0 and 12-2. Doncic turned the ball over on the Mavs first possession, and the Suns immediately turned that into a Mikal Bridges three-pointer to take a 5-0 lead. A pair of DeAndre Ayton buckets made it 9-0. And then, after Doncic finally broke the seal for Dallas, a Devin Booker and-one stretched the Phoenix lead to it’s largest in the opening stretch, at ten.
Reggie Bullock would factor prominently in the Mavs getting on track. He buried a three, and then hit an 18-footer on the next trip down, before Dorian Finney-Smith’s first bucket of the game got Dallas within five, at 14-9 before the game’s first timeout.
The Suns would answer right back though, with a Jae Crowder three and a bucket from Bridges, to get the lead back to ten, at 19-9.
Then Doncic turned it on. He set up Maxi Kleber for a lay-in, and then scored the next ten points for the Mavericks, in trimming the lead back down to five, at 26-21. Of the Mavs first 21 points of the game, Doncic scored or assisted on 19 of them.
The Mavericks ultimately went on a 19-11 spurt, to cut the Suns lead to two at 30-28, just before the end of the first quarter. Doncic scored or assisted on 24 of the Mavs 28 first quarter points.
The Mavs opened the second quarter on a 15-6 run, thanks to their second unit. Spencer Dinwiddie led the charge, hitting a three, assisting on a David Bertans three, hitting a pair of free throws, and connecting on an 11-footer, as Dallas took a 43-38 lead. Doncic was able to rest for the first 5:09 of the second quarter, because of the effectiveness of the Mavs second unit.
The Mavs continued the run when Doncic came back on the floor, with Bertans staying hot. He hit another three to give Dallas back their five point lead, at 48-43.
Then, Doncic went back into takeover mode, hitting a pair of face-up three pointers over tight defense, leading the Mavs to a 60-58 halftime lead, scoring 24 points on 9-14 shooting, 4-7 from three-point range, six assists, and four rebounds in the first half. Dinwiddie was the Mavs second-leading first half scorer, with 10 points.
It was a grossly over-officiated first half, with the two teams combining for 30 fouls. The second half wasn't much better, with another 24 fouls called after intermission.
The Suns opened the second half on a 16-6 run, to turn the Mavs two-point lead into an eight-point deficit, as Booker got hot. A pair of Booker threes, plus a 16-footer, and the Suns top player had it rolling. Chris Paul had back-to-back baskets. And JaVale McGee followed consecutive buckets with a gorgeous feed to Bridges for a layup.
The Mavs would answer back, courtesy of three straight Reggie Bullock three pointers, to even the game back up at 78-78. But then, the Suns again finished the quarter strong, with an 11-5 spurt, to lead by six going to the fourth quarter, 89-83. A couple Cam Johnson buckets and a Landry Shamet three-pointer were key to the stretch, to give the Suns, who were 51-0 when leading after three quarters coming into the game, the lead heading to the fourth.