Phoenix Suns: Player grades from a dramatic win over the Mavericks

The Phoenix Suns pulled out an incredible win against the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday, coming from 15 points behind to seal the victory.

Wow. What a ridiculously insane game that was. In one of the more unlikely comebacks in recent memory, the Phoenix Suns beat the Dallas Mavericks 117-115 to move to 2-0 within the Disney bubble, and creep a little closer to the teams above them in the standings.

As I said in the post-game article from the Washington Wizards game, the Suns have to treat this like the NCAA tournament where every game could be the last of their season. Survive and advance is the name of the game and that is exactly what they did Sunday night.

In this theatrical event, each quarter served as its own separate dramatic play.

In the first act, the Mavericks came out of the gate aggressive and in attack mode whereas the Suns did not. Dallas had all five players outside the 3-point line and simply continued to drive right by whoever was attempting to guard them. It led to a multitude of layups and free throws and it seemed like the Mavs could get to the rim at ease whenever they wanted.

The second quarter resulted in significant foul trouble for Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton, many of which were drawn by the player we shall not speak of (kidding, it was Luka Doncic) and the Suns went into the half down 13 points after giving up a whopping 73 points in the first half.

Doom and gloom lingered in the third quarter when both Ayton and Booker picked up their 5th fouls forcing them to the bench, but it was Jevon Carter and Cameron Payne with a serious of huge pull-up 3s and suddenly gave the Suns the lead.

The Suns held on in the fourth after a serious amount of missed 3s from Dallas (Suns fans thank them for that 6-31 shooting performance, by the way) including an off-the-mark would-be buzzer-beater by Tim Hardaway.

On top of the drama of the score, each

actor

player had his own story. Let’s break down how each of them performed and dole out grades to everyone who saw action: