Mavs Film Study: How Suns Contained Dallas to 102 Points in First Matchup of 2024-25 Season

Breaking down how the Phoenix Suns held the Dallas Mavericks to 102 points in their 2024-25 opener with key defensive strategies in this film study.

Phoro via Dallas Mavericks

PHOENIX — The Dallas Mavericks were contained to scoring 102 points in their loss against the Phoenix Suns on Saturday. This occurred despite Luka Dončić scoring 40 points, Kyrie Irving adding 22, and Klay Thompson scoring 19. The Mavs received 81 points from the top three scoring options, with the rest scoring 21.

It was an inefficient offensive performance from the Mavericks. They shot 37-of-93 (39.8%) from the floor and 13-of-41 (31.7%) from beyond the arc as a team. Outside of the top three scorers, Dallas shot 9-of-30 (30.0%) overall and 1-of-11 (9.1%) on threes. However, a few silver-linings to this game was only committing 8 turnovers and going 15-of-18 (83.3%) on free throws.

Let’s look at what proved to be ineffective for the Mavericks in this game, along with some of what worked:

Heavy Reliance on Klay in Spot Up

It’s only been two games, but the Mavericks have a massive disparity in spot-up scoring production from Thompson compared to the rest of the team. Thompson accounted for 20 of the team’s 26 points in this play type, with a staggering 2 points per possession output. Despite such tremendous execution from one player, the Mavericks only generated 0.69 points per possession.