Suns' Mikal Bridges admits team underestimated Mavericks

The Phoenix Suns have had a bit of time to pick up the pieces after their championship hopes were suddenly obliterated. Now one of their top players is speaking out about what exactly transpired.

Suns starting forward Mikal Bridges appeared this week on JJ Redick’s “The Old Man and The Three” podcast. In the episode, Bridges had an admission about Phoenix’s meltdown during the second round — that they underestimated their opponents, the Dallas Mavericks.

“[We] didn’t think that would happen,” said Bridges. “Never. Especially [against] Dallas. Dallas is good, but besides these playoffs, I don’t think I [had] lost to them. The Suns hadn’t lost to them in years. So it’s just like every time that we play them, [we think], ‘Oh, we have their number, we have their number.’”

Bridges added that he was “embarrassed” by the Suns’ Game 7 defeat to the Mavericks, a 33-point butchering in which Phoenix trailed by as many as 46 at one point.

“It sucks,” Bridges said.

Very few expected Dallas to even have a competitive series against the 64-win Suns, let alone win it. Phoenix had just made the NBA Finals in 2021 and were sizable 6.5-point favorites heading into Game 7.

Apparently the Suns themselves thought they would cruise to victory as well, and that may have been what did them in.