The Suns Have LUKA DONCIC Right Where They WANT HIM

Luka Doncic scored 45 points on 50% from the field and he had 12 rebounds and 8 assists with it. But even with this phenomenal game that he had, the Phoenix Suns are not only ok with it, but in fact, they have the Mavs, right where they want them.
Let me explain. What up everybody, my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it.
First of all, we all know how Dallas destroyed Utah on these switches with Gobert.
When the Jazz tried to help him out, the ball started moving, found the shooter in the corner and splash.
Well, things were a bit different with Phoenix. 1- they have guys like Bridges and Crowder who will fight hard on screens to recover, and the Suns were comfortable playing drop coverage with Ayton to force Luka to hit the midrange.
But on the rare occasions when there was a full on switch with the big man on Doncic, check out the defensive rotation here on this play, as the Suns recover on every single spot, and the ball eventually gets back to Doncic for a stepback from way downtown that misses.
Here’s possibly the craziest example of that. Bridges comes over to help his center. Luka swings it to Brunson and at this moment you see that Crowder goes there, and Bridges immediately sprints to the corner. Dude is such a crazy athlete that he got all the way there and actually blocked the shot. Amazing.
Even with all of this, Dallas had a best case scenario in this game. They hit 16 threes on 41% and Doncic had a 45 point triple double- almost. And they still lost. That’s why I said, Phoenix got them right where they wanted them.
MONTY DEFENSE INTERVIEW
Brunson and Dinwiddie aren’t just blowing by like they did past Mitchell, so in this game they were held to 9 for 24 that’s 37% from the field.
You can see right here CP3 on an island against Spencer, but he straight up snatches the ball away from him.
Cam Johnson is big enough and quick enough to contest this drive without fouling, and all of a sudden you take away Dinwiddie’s ability to hurt you inside.
Similar thing with Brunson. There’s no chance in the world that he could overpower Crowder on this post-up, so this ugly fling ends up as a miss.
He did miss some open shots that he would normally make, so I expect some more help from him in the next games.
But most of all, the size that Phoenix has on Dallas is going to be a problem in this series.
This is easy money for a big guy like Ayton and you can see how he punishes the smaller guys on him.
And to make it even more difficult, if you’re Kleber right here, you gotta jump out on the hand off, otherwise it’s a straight line for Booker for the layup or the midrange pop.
So Maxi stops that but then immediately has to go back because Deandre is left down low with Doncic. Great effort but not quick enough as you can see the lob and the dunk.
The Suns were +15 on the rebounds further cementing my point that the size is an issue, but as Monty Williams said it himself, they were +11 when it comes to assists and that’s a lot of problems if you’re the Mavs, so they need to go back to the drawing board and make adjustments for game 2.
Either someone from the role players really steps up, or Doncic needs to go for 60.
Let me know in the comments if you see a way out for Dallas. That’s it for now, subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.