Boiling Point: Can Mavs Protect Home Court, Save Season vs. Suns in Game 3?

As the Dallas Mavericks prepare to take on the Phoenix Suns in Game 3 of their Western Conference Semifinals series on Friday night, Dallas’ season has officially reached a boiling point.

The Suns currently hold a 2-0 lead, and if they were to push that lead to 3-0, it was essentially a death sentence for the Mavs, as no team in NBA history has ever come back from that big of a series deficit. If Dallas wants to turn down the heat on the stove, it will need to make real adjustments from what we witnessed in the first two games.

From a mental standpoint, to keep from being too discouraged with what has happened so far, the Mavs need to tell themselves that the Suns simply did what they were supposed to do, which was protect home court. Now Dallas must do the same at American Airlines Center, where it was 29-12 in the regular season and 2-1 in the first round against the Utah Jazz.

"We believe, man,” said superstar Luka Doncic after dropping 35 points in the Mavs’ 129-109 Game 2 loss. “They’ve got to win four, so it’s not over yet, but we’ve got to go back home. Our crowd is amazing, so we’re going to believe until the end."

Offensively, the Mavs haven’t really had a problem producing points, as they’re averaging 111.5 points per game in the series so far. The main issue is that the Suns are scoring 125 points per game. Part of that has to do with Phoenix targeting a fatigued Doncic off of switches like we saw many times from Chris Paul in Game 2. The other part, though, is that the Suns simply aren’t missing many shots, whether good defense is being played or not.

In Game 1, the Suns shot 50.5 percent from the field and 39.3 percent from deep. In Game 2, they raised their efficiency to an unreal 64.5 percent from the field and 52 percent on 3s. For context, the 64-win Suns averaged shooting 48.5 percent from the field and 36.4 percent from deep during the regular season.

Can the Mavs potentially benefit from some regression to the mean with the Suns’ shooting as the series shifts to Dallas? Will any of Doncic’s teammates — particularly, Jalen Brunson and Spencer Dinwiddie — “join the party?”

Dallas needs to hope some of that happens because their season depends on it. Let’s see how the next chapter in this series unfolds.