LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — The Phoenix Suns did all they could in the bubble. It still wasn’t enough.
Devin Booker scored 27 points and Phoenix beat the Dallas Mavericks 128-102 on Thursday to finish as the only team to win all eight games seeding games. That kept the Suns alive for a few hours, but they ended up on the outside looking in when Portland beat Brooklyn by a point.
Dario Saric scored 16 points and Cameron Payne and Cameron Johnson each added 15 for the Suns.
“I’m just really grateful for the effort and the growth of this team,” Suns coach Monty Williams said.
The Suns needed either Memphis or Portland to lose to get into the play-in series for the No. 8 seed in the West. Memphis won its game against Milwaukee in the same time slot as Phoenix,
“I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t looking,” he said. “I’m not ashamed to tell you we’ve all been thinking about it. I just told them to focus on the game and here I am — I probably looked at it right after I said it to them.”
Booker has been a breakout star in the bubble. The guard has averaged 30.5 points while shooting 50%t from the field. He was more concerned about team goals after the game.
“We had one objective — to get better — and we did that,” Booker said. “I think we approached this with the right mindset from the beginning, from practices, from training camp in Phoenix, from the first two weeks we got down here, everybody was locked in on all cylinders.”
Dallas was already locked into a playoff matchup with the Los Angeles Clippers, so the starters played limited minutes. Luka Doncic, who had averaged 32 points, 11 rebounds and 11.3 assists in the bubble, finished with 18 points in just over 13 minutes. Boban Marjanovic, Dallas’ 7-foot-4 reserve center, had 18 points and a career-high 20 rebounds.
