Dallas Mavs vs. Phoenix Suns Season Opener: 4 Big Things to Watch
PHOENIX — The Dallas Mavericks will open their 2022-23 NBA regular season schedule with a road matchup against the Phoenix Suns.
The last time the Mavs and Suns faced off was Game 7 of the Western Conference Semifinals when Dallas won 123-90. After being favored in the series, Phoenix experienced a significant letdown in the series. It was the start of a troubling string of events for Phoenix after a 64-win season.
Between Deandre Ayton's free agency debacle, an awkward media day, the Robert Sarver scandal, Jae Crowder requesting a trade, and failing to reach a contract extension agreement with Cam Johnson, the list of unfavorable outcomes has grown long for the Suns.
As for the Mavs, they lost Jalen Brunson in free agency, but they did add JaVale McGee and Christian Wood using offseason moves. Dallas largely kept the same roster together after their Western Conference Finals run but felt the need to add more size to their frontcourt.
Here are four key things to monitor when the Mavs take on the Suns on Wednesday in their regular season opener.
4. How Aggressive Will Spencer Dinwiddie Be?
The skill set of Jalen Brunson was valuable to the Mavs for many reasons. His ability to complement Doncic as an off-ball threat when they shared the floor was helpful. However, his ability to initiate the offense when Doncic was on the sidelines was even more important.
With Brunson now a member of the New York Knicks, it's been a priority for the Mavs to determine how to fill that void. Spencer Dinwiddie will start in the backcourt to take pressure off Doncic when the starters share the floor, but how will things look when Doncic isn't playing?
In the preseason, the Mavs have utilized Christian Wood and Tim Hardaway Jr. as focal points of the offense, in addition to staggering the playing time for Dinwiddie and Doncic. When playing with the bench group, Dinwiddie has largely been focused on "setting the table" for his teammates.
There has been a lacking of scoring impact from Dinwiddie since the start of preseason action. He has been more willing to settle for jumpers instead of playing his typical style of getting to the rim with force. How aggressive will he be looking to score now that it's the regular season?
During the 25 minutes that Dinwiddie played in the Mavs' preseason finale, he scored three points while shooting 1-8 (12.5 percent) overall and 1-5 (20.0 percent) from deep. Dallas is going to need a lot more scoring production from him than that going forward.
3. Return of Tim Hardaway Jr.
A common sentiment from members of the Mavs organization has been the view of Tim Hardaway Jr. being essentially an offseason addition since he was sidelined for much of the 2022-23 season. Coming off a 20-point performance in his preseason finale, he looks to have shaken off the rust from missing action.
“Just watching him in the preseason, he doesn’t look like he was out with an injury,” Williams said Monday. “He can shoot the ball, he’s strong, he’s tough, he can put it down better than people give him credit. He’s just one of those guys, when you lose Brunson, how do you get that back? And I think they can get it back as far as production in different ways with a guy like Hardaway.
“I’ve always liked his game, always undervalued in my opinion. Just from his production, not a guy you gotta call plays for every game and you look at the stat sheet and you’re like, ‘Man, he had a huge effect on the game.’ We have to account for him.”
The Mavs simply did not have a motion shooting threat like Hardaway during their playoff run. He enables them to utilize various screening actions that add helpful layers to their overall half-court attack.
2. Impact of Mavs Frontcourt Additions
While the Mavs managed to get by the Suns in their playoff matchup despite deploying an undersized center rotation, there were clear limitations in their ability to execute in areas such as rim protection and rebounding. By bringing in McGee and Wood, Dallas is hoping their problems are solved.
“They’ve added a level of length that most teams don’t have,” Suns coach Monty Williams said. “Most teams don’t carry four bigs like that that are all going to play.”
It will be a strong test for the new Mavs center rotation to go up against a talent like Deandre Ayton. Given there is already an extensive sample size of how small ball units performed against Ayton, Also, it will be a great look at how a team without much for center depth handles guarding Wood in plug-and-play minutes.
The Mavs largely thrived defensively against the Suns because they had a disruptive wing defender to slow down Chris Paul and Devin Booker. With the big defender often playing closer to the level in ball screen coverage, the Mavs also took away the short-range game as much as possible — disrupting the Suns' offense as a whole.
With the Mavs now deploying bigger lineup combinations on a regular basis, how effective will their base coverages be? Paul shredded the New Orleans Pelicans' defense in the Suns' first-round playoff series with Jonas Valanciunas being limited to drop coverage. Will Dallas throw out smaller combinations at times to disrupt teams that rely on such a play style?
1. Start of Luka Doncic MVP Campaign?
Entering the 2022-23 season, a common pick for the 2023 MVP award is Luka Doncic. It makes sense. He's earned three consecutive All-NBA First-Team nods, he's in great shape right away, and the Mavs have fully embraced "Luka ball" from Game 1. The circumstances are in place for a massive season.
“Not everybody can say they were MVP in the league in the best league in basketball," Doncic said. "But you’ve got to get there.”
How a player begins the season tends to leave a strong impression on their outlook for season awards. Despite Doncic playing at an MVP level for the significant majority of last season and ultimately averaging 28.4 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 8.7 assists, his lack of physical conditioning early seemingly neutralized his candidacy when his production otherwise was enough.
“The way he’s playing, he’s always going to be in the MVP conversation,”Mavs coach Jason Kidd said. “And I think he will be in that conversation the whole year this year.
“He’s (one of) if not the best player in the world, so I don’t know if year five is a benchmark. He will understand the league better. With his talent, he’s always going to make his teammates better.”
It wouldn't be the NBA or sports if Game 1 of 82 didn't command hot take reactions. It won't be a forced performance for the sake of competing for the MVP award, but regardless, a big game from Doncic will be something to keep an eye for these implications.
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