The Suns talked a good game, didn’t they?
About the allure of playing a Game 7 in the NBA playoffs, how they had earned the right to play it at Footprint Center by finishing the regular season with the best record in the league, how they knew they would play better after being blown out in Game 6 in Dallas.
In retrospect, the Suns should have put a lid on it, maybe like the one that was attached to their baskets Sunday against the Mavericks.
Being beaten in Game 7 is typically not a disgrace, but the Suns’ 123-90 loss Sunday was. If you watched, you know it wasn’t that close.
Use the harshest words you can to describe what happened in this Game 7: Debacle. Collapse. Choke. They all describe Sunday’s performance.
The Suns talked about the magic of a big moment, but when the moment came, they quivered.
From the outset, they were tight. Mavericks point guard Luka Doncic made some improbable shots. The Suns missed some reasonable attempts. The Suns grew tighter.
“We could not make some shots early, and that messed with us a little bit,” coach Monty Williams said.
From 64 wins to this: 5 takeaways from Suns’ lopsided loss to Mavs: Big 3 no show
Minutes into the game, the Suns were rattled, which speaks to how fragile the best team in the regular season became over the last month.
Williams blamed himself a few times after the game, saying he didn’t have his team ready for Game 7, but his players, rightly, dismissed that. They explained that at a time when they needed to play one of their best games, they played their worst. Not one of the worst. The worst.
They made just 6 of 23 field goals and scored 17 points in the first quarter, and it was hard to imagine anything worse.
Then the second quarter started. They scored just four field goals in that quarter, and by the end of the half were jacking up 3-pointers like it was a church league and not Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals.
The Mavericks led by 30 at halftime. The game was over. The second half is required only by NBA bylaws.
He was Wright: Fox Sports personality was right about Suns vs. Mavs
Guard Devin Booker missed all seven attempts in the first half and finished with 11 points. Point guard Chris Paul was 0-for-3 to start the game and scored only 10. Deandre Ayton took five shots, scored five points and played 17 minutes.
Why only 17?
“Internal,” Williams said, which suggests not all is fine with Ayton and the organization.
Hot topic: Where will Ayton stand with Suns after Game 7 loss to Mavericks?
Meanwhile, Doncic, whom the Suns passed on to take Ayton first overall in 2018, dominated. He scored 37 points in only 30 minutes of work and was clearly the best player on either team the whole series.
The thing about stars, you notice them when they shine brightly, and when they don’t show up. The Suns needed at least one of the Booker, Paul and Ayton trio, preferably more, to at least play their normal games. None did.
“You can have those nights in the regular season here and there, where your shot can’t fall and they’re making every shot,” Booker said. “It just happened to be the wrong timing, in Game 7.”
Read more: Who should Phoenix Suns look to trade after Game 7 collapse?
Paul played poorly for the fifth consecutive time in this series, leading to speculation that he wasn’t healthy. He dodged the question twice after the game, but ESPN reported afterward that he had a quadriceps contusion.
In his last five games, Paul took just 36 shots, averaged 9 points, committed 18 turnovers and had only 27 assists.
Even if Paul was hurting, there was no excuse for the Suns playing the way they did Sunday night. Forward Cam Johnson said after the game he would give anything to rewind the clock five hours, a feeling thousands of Suns fans shared.
It was a collapse of such monumental proportion that it will take most of the off-season to figure it out.
Embarrassing: Moore: Suns’ Game 7 loss stains legacies of all involved
The Suns were ahead 2-0 in this series They lost four of the next five to the Mavericks, the fourth seed, and weren’t competitive in any of the losses. They were out-coached and out-played, two things that didn’t seem possible through much of the regular season.
When Williams congratulated Mavs coach Jason Kidd after the game, Williams told him, You kicked our butts.”
Williams was referring to Sunday’s game, but it applied to others in the series as well.
How did they get here?: How the Suns fell five wins short of NBA Finals return
Warning signs that all was not right with the Suns came in the opening series of the playoffs when the Pelicans pushed the Suns with their physicality and tenaciousness. The Suns began displaying an annoying tendency to take games off. They seemed to think they could turn back into the NBA’s best team whenever they wanted.
We saw more of it against the Mavericks in the first six games of the Western Conference semifinals, how they confused and dismantled the Suns three times in Dallas. Anyone who watched the Suns in the regular season think that was possible?
Following the Suns? Download the free azcentral.com app for the latest news.
Fissures turned into cracks and cracks into crevasses. Paul was awful in the final five games of the series. Booker was shut down in Games 6 and 7, and the bench, which had been a detriment most of these playoffs, wasn’t equipped to dig the Suns out of a minor depression, much less a sinkhole so large it swallowed the hopes of long-suffering Suns fans.
Wait, that’s redundant. If you’re a Suns fan, you’re a long-suffering one.
You have scars from Finals losses in ’76 and ’93 and ’21, from blowing a series lead to the Rockets, to suspensions against the Spurs, and on and on.
But never from embarrassment, until Game 7 Sunday night.
Reach Kent Somers at [email protected]. Follow him on twitter @kentsomers.
Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.