A humiliating defeat
Lamenting the worst loss in Phoenix Suns franchise history
Fans of the Phoenix Suns are wondering what the heck happened after the team got crushed by the Dallas Mavericks in the final game of the Western Conference Semifinals. It’s the kind of loss that haunts a franchise. The Suns didn’t even put up a fight.
Here’s how FiveThirtyEight put it, and this is only a slight exaggeration:
For the majority of Game 7, it appeared as though the Suns had either forgotten how to play basketball or had never played the sport at all.
That article is a good breakdown of the reasons why, from a tactical perspective, the Suns got their asses handed to them by the Mavericks. But the X’s and O’s will never adequately explain what appeared to be a psychological collapse by the entire team.
Last year I wrote about the culture change within the Suns franchise that led to a magical run to the Finals. Things seemed to be going well again this year. There was background noise about an NBA investigation into the conduct of team owner Robert Sarver, but it didn’t seem to affect the team’s demeanor.
This year’s team was back with a vengeance. Or so we thought. The Suns won a franchise record 64 games and held the league’s best record by a wide margin heading into these playoffs.
Many good teams get knocked out of the playoffs. Even great teams get knocked out of the playoffs sometimes. Things happen.
But the team we watched in Game 7 was a shell of a basketball team. Utterly defeated from the start of the game. Inexplicably bad in every way.
Nobody played well except for Aaron Holiday, the third-string point guard who got two steals and sank two three-pointers in the final minute of the game to keep the loss under 40 points.
The loss was bad enough to justify re-tooling the entire roster. A tough pill to swallow so soon after being favored to win a championship. Devin Booker, the hope of the franchise, got silenced by the Mavs’ defense. Aging point guard Chris Paul, who has shown flashes of brilliance in two seasons in Phoenix, cemented his legacy as a great player who breaks down in playoffs. And Suns center Deandre Ayton, who was picked #1 in the 2018 draft, will likely find a better contract on a different team.
Viewed from an emotional distance, the outcome this year wasn’t too bad. The Suns got to the brink of the Western Conference Finals. They’ve now had two straight years of playoff runs after a decade of floundering among the NBA’s worst teams.
But sports fans don’t view games from an emotional distance, and there was something deeply unnerving about the lack of fight by the hometown team. It will be a tough task for the Suns next season to restore confidence in the team’s competitive spirit.
Historical Photo of the Month
