KEY POINTS
- The Phoenix Suns allowed the Dallas Mavericks to run roughshod on them in Game 7
- Deandre Ayton and head coach Monty Williams butted heads in the pivotal game
- "It's internal," Williams said of Ayton only playing 17 minutes
Despite putting up the best record in the league, the Phoenix Suns are now headed to the offseason after a deflating 123-90 loss to the Dallas Mavericks in Game 7.
The beatdown of the Suns came at the hands of Luka Doncic early on in the game as the Slovenian superstar had matched the entire Suns’ output of 27 points by himself in the first half.
No matter which way the team looks at it, allowing the Mavericks to even have a 46-point lead in a game when it mattered most was certainly indicative of how demoralized they were.
“I just told them how bad I hurt for them. I know they didn’t want to play that way. We basically played our worst game of the season tonight. That group has a lot of character and integrity, and I know how bad they wanted it,” head coach Monty Williams said in the postgame presser.
“They’ve been physical with us, they played different defenses that hampered us, but a lot of our stuff was just missed shots. We had opportunities early that we missed, then you couple that with their defense… I told Jason [Kidd] ‘you guys got us.’ That’s life.”
Prior to the game, there had been no issues reported about the Suns as it seemed like they were a perfectly cohesive unit that can come together.
It now appears that center Deandre Ayton and Williams are not seeing eye-to-eye according to some reports.
The NBA Coach of the Year was asked by the media in the postgame scrum about Ayton playing only 17 minutes, wondering whether he was hurt or something.
In relation to this, Williams had a short response.
“It’s internal,” said Williams with a stern, stone-faced look that Suns fans have never seen before, hinting at a much bigger issue between the two.
As for Ayton, NBA personality and reporter Marc J. Spears confirmed that the Suns' big man will not be speaking to the media.
The ever-present Suns superfan Mr. Orange apparently caught wind of the situation as he tweeted out the heated confrontation between Ayton and Williams.
“DA (Deandre Ayton) had words for Monty on that substitution. Monty walked towards him and asked, ‘what did you say?’ when two coaches stepped in between them,” he wrote.
Ayton asking for the max extension this offseason would have made sense had they weathered the Milwaukee Bucks-sized storm in the NBA Finals to win the title and at least made it back to the Western Conference Finals.
After this disappointing postseason run, this might be it for Ayton’s tenure with the team as franchise owner Robert Sarver’s hesitancy to pay him the max may have been prophetic in a way now.
The NBA landscape will be watching the Suns closely to see what they do next with Ayton and his contract status.
Luka Doncic #77 of the Dallas Mavericks leaves the court after defeating the Phoenix Suns 123-90 in Game Seven of the 2022 NBA Playoffs Western Conference Semifinals at Footprint Center on May 15, 2022 in Phoenix, Arizona. Photo: Christian Petersen/Getty Images
