What a game last night. That must be the best game of this year if not for the past few. It was like a game seven in the NBA finals. It was that good. Of course, the Suns barely played Suns basketball through this thing and it seemed more like a vendetta game yet came out with a win in 2OT 129-127.

The Suns knew this was a must win and so did the Mavs. The Suns came out on fire in the first quarter and built a lead that they would eventually piss away in the third. In that third quarter the Suns looked lost. Steve Nash just wasn’t right. He was dribbling around the lane and not getting his teammates good shots. It’s as if he was overanxious and not letting things flow.

In the third Steve would often find himself in the lane with no good passes to make, which wound up with somebody taking a difficult shot. That’s how the Mavs came back and built a lead of their own. Also, Steve was gunning without remorse but the only problem was that his shots weren’t falling. Throughout this painful 12 minutes I found myself wondering why they weren’t getting Amare going.

Then the third quarter rolled into the fourth quarter and the Mavs managed to build a 16 point lead. The Suns battled to withing 10 but the Mavs had seemingly put the game away. At least that is what Dirk though when he was pumping his fist like he had claimed victory. With about five minutes to play the Suns put the clamps down on the Mavs and made some stops and converted those into points. Nashty then went on a tear scoring 10 points in 55 seconds.

Dirk missing a freethrow in the final seconds to give the Suns a chance was icing on the cake. At that point I knew the Suns would win. I knew they would send it to OT. I knew Nash would hit the big shot. I didn’t think he would get a couple cracks at it though. I think we can thank Shawn Marion as much for this win as we can Steve. Shawn grabbed Steve’s miss and within seconds had the ball back in Steve’s hands when he sunk the three.

Overtime was all ours. We have handled these situations very well this season and I knew the Mavs would get tired. Then Amare took over. It was a little late but I’ll take it. He was unstoppable in OT. Consequently The Mavs started fouling out. Eventually the Suns put the game away for a sweet win.

I think I figured out why the Mavs are always preaching defense. Not that they are this defensive juggernaut or anything, they are pretty good but not great. They keep talking about it so that the ref’s let them get away with some dirty plays and be extra physical. The Mavs, that is a dirty team.

Also, we need for more guys to step up. I mean the scoring on the Suns was very atypical and we’re lucky to win. Hopefully Steve got that out of his system and the next time we play Suns basketball.

Original post by Rising Suns and software by Elliott Back

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