Phoenix Suns seeking their best version heading into Game 2 vs. Dallas Mavericks

The Phoenix Suns are happy with how they played most of Monday’s Game 1 at Footprint Center, but can’t dismiss how they finished the 121-114 win over Dallas.

The Suns were up 21 points with under nine minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, but let the Mavericks make it more interesting than it needed to be.

“You’ve got to look at both,” said Suns forward Cam Johnson, who finished third in the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year voting as Heat guard Tyler Herro won the award. “You’ve got to weigh both, and you’ve got to determine what is going to sustain us going forward and what version of us and them we’ll get going forward.”

Dallas pulled within single digits with a little more than a minute left. The fourth-seeded Mavs shrunk that lead down to five with 10.5 seconds left before coming up short.

“This is the first time I think we had a slow start, but I like the way we responded,” Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said after Game 1.

Now the top-seeded Suns enter Wednesdays’ Game 2 of the Western Conference semifinals looking to take a 2-0 series lead.

“We just relaxed a little bit there late,” Suns forward Jae Crowder said. “Where we are now in the playoffs, teams have pride and they’re going to keep playing throughout the whole 48 minutes. We’ve got to do the same thing. I think we didn’t end the game the way we wanted to, but I think it’s a learning experience for us to keep our foot on the gas. Keep a team down. Don’t give them life. Last night, we gave them a little life.”

Game 3 is Friday and Game 4 is Sunday in Dallas.

“The one thing you can’t lose sight of is you won a playoff game, but there’s a certain way that we like to play and we felt like we had decent control of the game,” Suns coach Monty Williams said. “When I went back and we went back and looked at the film, we missed a number of bunnies around the basket. We missed a few open shots and then the transition defensive component added to that.”

Suns big Deandre Ayton voiced his displeasure with how the Suns ended the game, saying their finish was “unacceptable,” but vowed they won't fizzle down the stretch again.

“We'll be way more locked in like we just came off the L because the team had a gut feeling,” said Ayton, who scored a team-high 25 points in Game 1. "When we walked out of the locker room, not everybody was happy with how we ended that."

Mikal Bridges was the only Suns starter in the game to begin the fourth, but the Mavs made enough of a push back that Williams had all his starters on the floor by the near midway point of the quarter.

“Sitting there watching our bench, making sure they close out and they play the right way because that's the type of team where Coach takes the starters out and has the bench in," Ayton said. "Mainly it's about playing the right way. Playing the right way and finishing out strong."

Luka Doncic scored a game-high 45 points with 13 coming in the fourth as the Mavs went small in the final quarter. The Suns not only failed to fully exploit that as it did the first half on the offensive end, but they didn’t match up well on the defensive end in either transition or in the halfcourt.

“We had some really good runs in that game, and I think that’s the team we can be,” Johnson said. “That’s the team I think we should be. They changed up the rhythm by going small a little bit, but I don’t think that necessarily going small really changed anything. I think we missed shots that we were making all game. We missed layups. We missed hooks. We missed easy ones and then they scored in transition.”

The Suns shot 63.6% from the field in the first half, going 6-of-12 from 3 in building a 69-56 halftime lead.

They stayed hot from 3 in third (4-of-8) to take a 96-79 advantage into the fourth.

“I think our defense lost us the game tonight,” Doncic said. “I think our start on the defensive end was terrible and we’ve got to change that. I know we can play way better defense and I know we will.”

The Mavericks came back to shoot 66.7% in the fourth, going 4-of-8 from 3.

In drastic contrast, the Suns connected on only 28% of their shots in the fourth, hitting just 1-of-8 from 3.

That's how a 21-point game can end with just a seven-point margin.

"We've got to play with that fight like we did in that second half," Mavs forward Dorian Finney-Smith said.

"We was a lot more talkative, communicating with each other a lot better. We got to come out and play like that the whole game. They were getting all of the 50-50 balls and offensive rebounds. That stuff you can’t teach. That is just want to and they wanted it more in the first three quarters.”

Have opinion about current state of the Suns? Reach Suns Insider Duane Rankin at dmrankin@gannett.com or contact him at 480-787-1240. Follow him on Twitter at @DuaneRankin.

Support local journalism. Start your online subscription.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix Suns see ways to improve with 1-0 lead on Dallas Mavericks