The Phoenix Suns will play San Antonio in Mexico City on December 14, 2019

The Phoenix Suns probably aren’t going to get a Christmas Day game again (for the tenth consecutive season), but they will play in Mexico City – so that’s something.

On December 14th, 2019, the Phoenix Suns will face off against the San Antonio Spurs in Mexico City, the second time in three seasons the two teams will meet in our southern border nation’s capital.

From a marketing standpoint, Mexico of course is a special place for NBA franchise’s like the Phoenix Suns and San Antonio Spurs as the two team’s home states borders Mexico with the region highly interlocked both economically and politically.

Arizona borders the Mexican state of Sonora and a small part of Baja California near Yuma, while Texas shares borders with Chihuahua, Coahuila, a tiny portion of Nuevo Leon near Laredo, and Tamaulipas.

Phoenix Suns

The last time the Suns played in Mexico City was January 12 and 14, 2017, where Phoenix faced off first against the Dallas Mavericks followed by a matchup with the aforementioned Spurs.

You might remember that these two games were very important for Devin Booker (his mother is Mexican-American and Puerto Rican), and was in a way a breakout two-game series for the then second year player.

Booker led the 12-16 Suns with a career-high 39 points on 14-20 shooting and 6-7 from beyond the arc.

Devin had been held quite through the first three quarters, however, entering the fourth with only 11 points. It was there that he had a monster 12 minutes when he dropped 28 points – a franchise-high for any quarter – where he finished 9-11 from the field, 5-6 from 3, and 5-7 from the charity stripe.

As has generally been the case for Book throughout his NBA career, he was not helped offensively by his teammates who shot only 2-8 from the field in the fourth, scoring a grand total of four points.

On the game, center Tyson Chandler was also outstanding, grabbing 19 boards to go along with 14 points, and the Suns in total shot 10-18 from 3 and out-rebounded Dallas 47-32.

However, it was a terrible third quarter (one of the many call-signs of an Earl Watson-led Suns at the time), poor Suns defense, and efficient Dallas shooting that led to their 113-108 victory as the Mavs recorded 29 total assists on 48.3% shooting while the Suns only dished out 12 assists on 48.7% from the field.

Phoenix followed that game up against the Spurs with one of the biggest upsets of the season just two days later.

Booker posted a career-high-tying 39 points on 12-22 shooting including 3-5 from beyond the arc, but a perfect 12-12 from the free throw line to boot.

Chandler again cleaned up the boards snagging 15 to go with 10 points, but Eric Bledsoe also opened up his game and dished out 10 assists, his fourth double-digit assist night of the season, and one off his then season-high.

What made this game particularly memorable was that Booker managed to outplay already-superstar Kawhi Leonard, who finished with 38 points and battled Book to the end, often mano-a-mano.

Kawhi shot a hair better from the floor than Book finishing 12-20, although two missed free throws (12-14) was the back-breaker in the head-to-head matchup.

The Suns rode on Booker’s back to a late 108-105 comeback victory over the then 31-8 Spurs, a team who would eventually finish 61-21 and end their season in the Western Conference Finals.

Although Phoenix will only play one game in Mexico City this coming season, fans can already add their first game to their calendars and mark a re-match of the epic 2017 battle.

Hopefully again the good guys will once again come out on top, and as we do not yet have anywhere near a finalized roster, that the Suns will be a much more complete team, one with a legitimate starting point guard and power forward. And hey – they will definitely have a much  better head coach in Monty Williams.