Phoenix comes up empty as season ends

But as much as things changed over those six-plus months — and boy, did they ever change — the more they ultimately stayed the same. And Saturday night, when the sapped Suns blew an 18-point, second-quarter lead to Dallas, the gas tank was finally drained.

And the clock struck midnight on Cinderella.

Living with their backs to the wall for a month, Phoenix finally ran into one — a combination of early foul trouble and a tough Dallas defense that limited the Suns to just 42 second-half points as the Mavericks rolled to a 102-93 win at US Airways Center and their first trip to the NBA Finals.

Last year, the Suns came up three wins shy of the Finals. This year, it was two.

“You can taste it when you get close like this,” said Suns guard Steve Nash, who has played in more playoff games (86) than any other active player without reaching the Finals. “You spend a lot of time convincing yourself that you’re destined to do it. When you don’t, it’s difficult.”

Going to their emotional well one more time, Phoenix raced to a quick 18-7 lead and stretched the advantage to 15 at the end of the first quarter. When Shawn Marion buried a 3-pointer from the deep corner with 6:15 left before halftime, the Suns led 44-26 and visions of a third Game 7 showdown — this one in Dallas — was beginning to take shape.

But 20 seconds later, Tim Thomas — one of several Suns who struggled in Game 6 — went to the bench with his third foul. Leandro Barbosa already had three and Boris Diaw and Raja Bell followed with their third fouls as Phoenix scored just seven points after Marion’s bucket before the break.

They still led 51-39 at the half, but the Suns’ aggressiveness and offensive flow never returned. Credit a lot of that to Dallas, who used its new commitment to defense to shut down the Suns in the final two games.

“They’re a great team, they did what they’re supposed to do to win,” Suns coach Mike D’Antoni said. “They showed a lot of guts coming back from 18 down. Our guys just ran out of steam. We got bogged down and couldn’t score. They played really well and we couldn’t hold it.”

Dirk Nowitzki, who put Dallas in control of the series with a 50-point explosion in Game 5, scored 16 of his 24 in the second half while Jason Terry — who played only two minutes in the first half due to foul trouble — had all 17 of his points in the second half, when the Mavericks outscored the Suns 63-42.

Phoenix still led by 13 with five minutes left in the third quarter before Dallas used a 17-2 run — capped by DeSagana Diop’s dunk with 9:44 left in the game — to regain the lead at 68-66. The Mavericks never trailed again.

Dallas has won all three series during these playoffs on the road — beating Memphis, San Antonio and now Phoenix on their home floors. And it avenged a six-game loss to the Suns in last year’s conference semifinals, when Phoenix closed out the Mavericks in Dallas.

“Defensively, we were awesome in the second half,” Nowitzki said. “We were rotating, we were helping each other. That’s the kind of defense we play under (coach) Avery (Johnson) and it won us the game.”

Boris Diaw led the Suns with 30 points and 11 rebounds, 20 of them in the first half. Thomas, who had six 3-pointers and scored 26 points in Game 5, missed all three 3-point attempts in Game 6 and scored just eight points. Raja Bell, unable to move on either end of the floor for a second straight game due his partially torn calf muscle, was scoreless until hitting two meaningless 3-pointers in the final 30 seconds.

Nash had 19 rebounds and nine assists, but took just seven shots in the first three quarters and was unable to lift his team the way Nowitzki pulled his to safety in Game 5, when the Suns rallied from a large deficit to take a seven-point, third-quarter lead.

Afterward, Phoenix acknowledged Dallas was the better team, but lamented a rare opportunity had passed them by.

“Conference finals is great, but we really did have a great opportunity tied 2-2 going into Dallas to really, really put our stamp on the NBA,” Bell said. “I truly believe next year we’re going to be a great team, we’ll have Amaré (Stoudemire) back and we’ll make a run at a championship.

“But we could have done it this year. We were short-handed, but we were capable of it.”