After winning their home opener against the San Antonio Spurs, the Dallas Mavericks hit the road to take on the Phoenix Suns on Saturday evening. 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 player Dante Exum, who remains sidelined after offseason surgery, while the Suns listed Bradley Beal and Grayson Allen as notable absences. Despite facing a team playing its third game in four nights, the Mavericks couldn't put enough together in this game to earn a W.

Before we dive into the grades for each player's performance, here's a quick reminder of the basic rules for scoring, as this is only the second part of a recurring series.

• Grades will be awarded to all Mavericks players who logged meaningful playing time/stats.
• 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 this convenient to use Ten letter grades on a scale of 1 to 10 if you like – we love math people too.
• There is no F grade. It would undermine credibility to label anyone capable of making the NBA roster a “failure,” no matter how bad the game they played was.
• Players are generally ranked according to scale. In other words, a Luka A+ will look different than a Dwight Powell A+ for obvious reasons.
• If a player logged mostly unnecessary time and had little or no stats, he will not be included or will otherwise be given a “N/A” instead of a grade.

Luka Doncic

When you led the league in scoring average last year with 33.9 PPG, dropping 40 is a sure way to get high marks. Luka played an outstanding game: 12:25 from the floor, 5:13 from three and 11:12 from the free throw line. 40 points, 10 rebounds and even 4 assists in a game where the team's shooting percentage was under 40% was a huge bright spot in an otherwise disappointing game.

Grade: A+

Kyrie Irving

Kyrie had a solid night, dropping 22 points and leading the team in assists (5) and steals (3), although his shooting percentage wasn't spectacular. He hit 40% on five of three attempts, but was 9 of 22 overall. On tonight's Pod Maverick broadcast, David Trink made a great point that no one else is talking about – perhaps Kyrie is still working on recovering from offseason hand surgery. Whatever the case, he's playing hard and contributing, but it will be nice to see the lethality of his shot return hopefully soon.

Grade: B+

Klay Thompson

For a guy who has spent his entire career in another city until this season, Thompson seems surprisingly well-adjusted. He did everything you could ask for, going 5 of 12 (41.7%) through three games and scoring 19 points. He added 3 rebounds, 1 assist and 1 steal and was once again firmly anchored on defense with a very solid performance.

Grade: A

PJ Washington

After a pretty solid game in the season opener, Washington probably wishes he had some of his shots back tonight. He shot a miserable 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 for 35 minutes of action the team would have benefited tremendously if he had knocked down a few more of his wide open corner threes.

Grade: C-

Dereck Lively II

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

Grade: B

Naji Marshall

Marshall's shooting problems continued into the second game of the season, highlighted by a missed layup in the third^approx Quarter that can somehow best be described as “over-the-top.” On the other hand, he appeared comfortable and active, brought the ball back up and initiated the offense well several times. He somehow had the best plus/minus on the team, but unfortunately it was 0.

Grade: C

Daniel Gafford

Gafford delivered an astonishing performance. He grabbed four offensive rebounds (eight total) and was active as usual, but his shooting was bizarre. He hit a few front-rim shots from a few feet away, and for a guy who hit 72.5% of his shots from the field last season, tonight was well below the norm. On the positive side, he provided four assists and seven points in just 18 minutes of play.

Grade: B

Maxi glue

Kleber's stats weren't bad, but they weren't particularly noteworthy either. He made some efforts that won't be reflected in the box score, but when the Mavs were forced to play small with Kleber deep, Jusuf Nurkic became a one-man offensive player and scored 12 straight points for the Suns.

Grade: C

Jaden Hardy

Aside from a single rebound (and a personal foul, if you want to count that as a stat), Hardy played no role. He missed all four of his shot attempts, including making it 0-3 with three-pointers in just one touch over 12 minutes of play.

Grade: D

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