The Phoenix Suns had their hearts broken in Mexico City, when the lost an overtime thriller to the San Antonio Spurs. Good for neutral Mexico basketball fans, bad for the Suns.
I was all set up to write how apropos it was for the only Spanish-speaking player on the court to hit the game-winning 3 pointer for the Phoenix Suns after Ricky Rubio nailed a deep ball in LaMarcus Aldridge’s eye and the Spurs had to play the foul game with less than 10 seconds to go.
Then, the unthinkable happened.
First, Cam Johnson forgot how to inbound the ball. Then Lamar DeRozen made a prayer and-one to tie the game, but he missed the free throw, so it remained tied. During the scrum for the rebound, the ball pin-balled off multiple players’ hands, knees, and ultimately (although questionably) Mikal Bridges‘ head.
Enter Greg Popovich, who drew up a great out-of-bounds play and Patty Mills, who executed it well and hit a silky jumper to secure the unlikely four-point possession and rip the guts of the Phoenix Suns.
Just like literal gut excision would, this hurts. Monty Williams agrees:
"“You have to hurt in those situations, I think, to learn from them…I hope this hurts, and pain helps us mature.”"
I would argue that winning these kind of games is better than losing them, but I guess you have to twist matters positively where you can.
The Suns had a chance to go on a win streak and instead, lost back-to-back winnable games.