After winning their home opener against the San Antonio Spurs, the Dallas Mavericks hit the road to take on the Phoenix Suns on Saturday night. The Mavericks won two of three games against the Suns last season, including a Christmas Day game in which Luka Doncic dropped 50 points.

The Mavericks were without rotation piece Dante Exum, who remains sidelined this offseason, with the Suns listing Bradley Beal and Grayson Allen as notable absentees. Despite facing a team playing their third game in four nights, the Mavericks couldn’t rally enough to get a W in this game.

Before we get into the grades for each player’s performance, here’s a quick reminder of the basic rules of judging, as this is only the second in a recurring series.

• Grades will be given to all Mavericks players who have logged meaningful playing time/statistics.
• The rating system uses an alphabetical scale of: D, C-, C, C+, B-, B, B+, A-, A, A+ (for those who prefer a numerical scale, you will find that you can easily use ten letter numbers on a scale of 1-10 if you prefer – we like math people too).
• There is no F class. It would defy credibility to categorize anyone capable of making an NBA roster as a “failure,” no matter how bad a game they had.
• Players are generally rated on scale. In other words, a Luka A+ will look different than a Dwight Powell A+ for obvious reasons.
• If a player has logged mostly garbage time and has few or no stats, he will not be included or otherwise receive an N/A instead of a grade.

Luka Doncic

If you led the league with 33.9 PPG last year, dropping 40 is a good way to get high numbers. Luka had an excellent game, going 12-for-25 from the floor, 5-for-13 from three and 11-for-12 from the free-throw line. 40 points, 10 rebounds and even 4 assists in a game where the team shot under 40% was a huge bright spot in an otherwise disappointing game.

Grade: A+

Kyrie Irving

Kyrie had a solid night where he scored 22 points while leading the team in assists (5) and steals (3), but his shooting percentage wasn’t spectacular. He hit 40% on 5 attempts from three, but went 9-for-22 from the field overall. On tonight’s Pod Maverick broadcast, David Trink made a great point that no one else is talking about – maybe Kyrie is still working on his shot back from offseason hand surgery. Either way, he’s playing hard and contributing, but it’ll be nice to see the lethality of his shot hopefully return soon.

Grade: B+

Klay Thompson

Thompson looks surprisingly good for someone who has played his entire career in another city until this season. He did everything you could hope for, going 5-for-12 (41.7%) from three and scoring 19 points. He added 3 rebounds, 1 assist and 1 steal and was once again locked into the defense in a very solid performance.

Grade: A

PJWashington

After a quietly solid game in the season opener, Washington probably wishes it had some of its shots back tonight. He shot a dismal 2-for-10 from the floor and missed all but one of his five three-point attempts. He did grab 6 boards, had 1 steal and 1 block, but over 35 minutes of action the team would have benefited greatly if he knocked down a few more of his wide open corner threes.

Grade: C-

Dereck Vivid II

Lively didn’t score much (5 points), but hit both of his field goal attempts and also grabbed 11 rebounds (4 offensive). He also provided 3 assists, but did not record a block. His biggest problem was early foul trouble that limited his floor time to just 21 minutes, but he had a solid game despite the limited playing time.

Grade: B

Naji Marshall

Marshall’s shooting woes continued in game 2 of the season, culminating in a missed layup in the 3^rd Quarter that can somehow best be described as ‘surplus’. On the other hand, he looked comfortable and active, brought the ball forward again and started the attack well on several occasions. He somehow had the best plus/minus on the team, but unfortunately it was 0.

Grade: C

Daniel Gafford

Gafford put on a puzzling display. He grabbed four offensive rebounds (8 total) and was his usual active self, but his shooting was bizarre. He made a few shots from a few yards out and for a guy who shot 72.5% from the field last season, tonight was well below par. On the plus side, he also added 4 assists to go with 7 points in just 18 minutes of action.

Grade: B

Maxi Kleber

Kleber’s stats weren’t bad, but they weren’t remarkable in any way either. He made some efforts that aren’t reflected in the box score, but when the Mavs were forced to go small with Kleber low on the ground, Jusuf Nurkic became a one-man attack and scored twelve straight Suns points.

Grade: C

Jaden Hardy

Other than a single rebound (and a personal foul, if you want to count that as a statistic), Hardy wasn’t a factor. He missed all four of his shot attempts, including going 0-for-3 on threes with just one touch during a twelve-minute burn.

Grade: D

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