Some teams have to go through an entire NBA season to figure out how to win games later. Some teams, like last year’s Phoenix Suns, don’t even find out.

This iteration has already made it a few weeks before Thanksgiving, with Friday’s 114-113 win over the Dallas Mavericks marking Phoenix’s latest win.

The Suns are now 7-0 in games classified as clutch time, where the margin is within five points and the playing time is less than five minutes. They improve to 8-1 overall this season and have won seven in a row.

While Kevin Durant led them on most of those occasions and he started that window with a pair of threes, this was more of the sloppy and disjointed variety of winning time that often occurs.

He and Kyrie Irving of Dallas organized a shot-making clinic that would qualify as an art exhibit before things got weird.

The cinema that unfolded evolved into one of the aforementioned chaotic currents, and the crucial segment came when Jusuf Nurkic picked Irving off the ball screen defense in a draw, giving the Suns the ball with 36 seconds left. Durant got an open 3 on the sideline, but missed it. However, Bradley Beal rose through the offensive glass to get some of the ball so it ended up in Nurkic’s hands for a free dunk to go up two with 31.4 seconds left.

Mavericks guard Luka Doncic created a free lob on their possession, tying it and seemingly giving the Suns the final possession of the game. During the game, Royce O’Neale screened for Durant to get to a floater he made earlier in the night, but he was strong-armed, only for Nurkic to get another big offensive rebound and make a shooting foul with 0 remaining .8 seconds to go.

Nurkic made it one of two, and after a Dallas timeout to advance the ball, Doncic’s shot from more than 30 feet fell short.

While Durant finished with 26 points on 8-of-14 shooting, six Suns players recorded at least 13 points, including 18 off the bench for O’Neale and a season-high 17 for Tyus Jones. Devin Booker and Beal combined to shoot 2 of 15 from 3 and were 11 of 30 in the game as a whole.

This was rinse, repeat for what we have now seen nine games into this Suns season. The top-level play spurt came in the first quarter, as they shot 8-of-13 from 3 and led by 10. From then on, Phoenix was largely business as usual fine and did enough defensively to stay in the game before being executed in crunch time.

The start of the game was one of those nights versus Dallas when the duo of Doncic and Irving played only individual offense, most of which did not include paint highlights. When the two did that, it wasn’t to cause ball movement, and that really simplifies what a defense has to do against them. The Mavericks could easily fall into this trap, especially when Doncic is dealing with an ailment like his recent groin injury.

That was the story in the first half before Doncic and Irving led 15-2 at halftime to tie the game at 65. Both found a rhythm, so it was then about Phoenix’s initial 1-on-1 defense and rotations. Outside of Klay Thompson, Dallas has shooters that can help the Suns well, especially with the poor start to the season for Spencer Dinwiddie, Quentin Grimes and Naji Marshall. Marshall’s driving game made the difference as he scored nine of his 18 points in the third quarter.

Phoenix was 3 of 17 from 3 in the middle quarters, a period that saw a significant decline in the quality of those looks. The Suns weren’t able to produce enough offensively out there, allowing a total of 51 points in that time frame to make it another tight game.

Doncic and Irving each got a bucket in the first two minutes of the final frame, indicating this would be tough sledding for the Suns if the shooting woes continued. They missed their first two attempts, making it seem like this would come down to Durant or Booker getting hot to save the outcome.

With Durant resting in the front half of the fourth quarter, a key two-possession swing came when Beal (who was struggling) couldn’t score on Mavericks center Dwight Powell and then Jones (who was great in this game) created an open canceled the match. 3 and roadway. Dallas scored on that Jones possession to go up six with 7:39 left and Durant checked back in.

Beal then drilled a crucial 3, Phoenix’s second 3-pointer of the second half, to cut it to three. Marshall hit a 3 for Dallas before a Jones floater made it a one-score game. It was a necessary response to not let Dallas take full control before the crisis arrived, where Phoenix has been and remains a nail until now.

Beal hit two more field goals, and then it was officially clutch time, so Durant converted two 3s at just the right moment to match seven straight Irving points, making it a one-point game at 3:17 came about before it all got a bit weird. .

Doncic (30 points) and Irving (29) combined to score 59 points.

Nurkic contributed 15 points, 10 rebounds, two steals and one turnover, his third very good game in a row.

Booker was a late addition to the injury report Friday afternoon due to an illness that listed him as questionable. In the last ten years of covering Booker, I don’t recall ever mentioning him with an illness, and a quick search of past injury reports turned up no results either. He’s definitely endured some bad colds and the like over his years, so if this comes out and calls his status into question at some point, it should speak to how bad he was.

He added 12 assists (with no turnovers) and six rebounds to his poor shooting night, while Beal’s 6-for-17 performance for 15 points was his worst performance in a season where he was great to start the year.

Dallas’ depth was seriously tested in this film. Starters Dereck Lively II (right shoulder sprain) and PJ Washington (right knee sprain) were both injured recently, while Maxi Kleber (right hamstring strain) has played just two games this season and Dante Exum (right wrist surgery) has yet to make his debut. This left the Mavericks stretching to the end of their bench, including Powell, who moved from their starting 5 to their fourth-string 5, and Olivier-Maxence Prosper, the former 2023 first-round pick.

Prosper did not play in the second half and Dallas recorded only two reserves playing more than ten minutes: Dinwiddie (28) and Powell (25). Doncic (42) and Irving (41) went north of 40.

Ryan Dunn did not play after spraining his left ankle. Suns sideline reporter Amanda Pflugrad reported on the television broadcast that Dunn hopes to play in Sunday’s home game against the Sacramento Kings and that Dunn moved well in the shootaround. Josh Okogie earned the ninth man in the rotation. Phoenix reversed exactly that amount after backup point guard Monte Morris recorded back-to-back DNPs in the last two games.

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