3. Game-winners
Game-winners happen in the NBA, and they’re part of what makes the game so great. There’s nothing better than watching your favorite team win in dramatic fashion at the last possible second.
Unfortunately, the Suns have been on the wrong end of those last-second triumphs, losing not one, not two, but THREE games on buzzer-beaters so far this season. That’s right folks: three of 19 losses on the season were games that came down to one possession not swinging in Phoenix’s favor.
Friday night, former ASU Sun Devil James Harden supplied the third dagger, knocking in a game-winner over P.J. Tucker at the buzzer to give the Houston Rockets the 113-111 win at US Airways Center. That one was a legitimately good play.
The other two buzzer-beaters were just plain difficult to swallow, and the fact that they came within a week of each other certainly didn’t help.
First, there was Blake Griffin‘s ridiculous step-back three that gave the Clippers an overtime victory in Los Angeles. The ball clanked the rim head-on, bounced back up, grazed the backboard and somehow fell in, turning the Suns’ two-point lead with 2.8 seconds to go into a one-point defeat.
It’s hard to call it lucky since Griffin finished with 45 points on the night, but come on. Watch it again and tell me that’s not one of the luckiest bounces you’ve ever seen.
A week later, the Suns got punched in the gut once again, this time thanks to a Khris Middleton three-pointer at the buzzer that he not only banked in, but somehow also got to roll around nearly every part of the rim and fall off the backboard a SECOND time.
That heartbreaker turned a one-point Suns advantage with 3.5 seconds left into a two-point defeat. Like Griffin’s buzzer-beater the week before, can you really deny this game-winner was of the no-alibi variety? I mean, this is ugly:
Whatever the case, all three shots went in to hand the Suns three losses that should’ve/could’ve been victories. Bad breaks like those could make all the difference in the Western Conference bloodbath.
Next: Brutal Schedule