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Yet those NBA games still matter a great deal to the competitors on the court. So we must give some credit to the Phoenix Suns and Portland Trail Blazers, who played a great game on Wednesday night that concluded nearly simultaneously with an instant classic winner-take-all contest. They deserved a little more attention even if they were always unlikely to get it.
Let’s start very late, when the Blazers and Suns neared the end of regulation in what was a very close contest. Phoenix wing P.J. Tucker split a pair of free throws with 15 seconds remaining to tie the game at 101-101, after which everyone knew the ball would go to Portland star Damian Lillard to create a potential winner. Lillard appeared to get his chance when he tried to split a double team with six seconds on the clock, but Tucker and Eric Bledsoe were allowed to get away with a good amount of contact to force a turnover.
A timeout gave Bledsoe the opportunity for his own big bucket, and he did not disappoint:
The Blazers looked set to depend on a miracle to force overtime or win in regulation. Yet head coach Terry Stotts proved himself to be one of the league’s best at drawing up plays with this effort to free up Meyers Leonard for a wide-open lay-up:
Pretty cool, right? Unfortunately for the Suns and Blazers, this sequence occurred shortly after the Cubs had taken the lead in the top of the 10th inning and drawn three outs away from their first World Series championship in 108 years.
However, rules are rules, and everyone decided to play the extra period instead of taking a break to watch baseball history. The Suns made up for their blown coverage at the end of regulation by building up a 115-109 lead with only 38 seconds left in OT. Yet two very poor fouls allowed the Blazers a way back into the game. Mo Harkless converted an and-one just two seconds after Phoenix had pushed the lead to six, after which Bledsoe missed a late-clock jumper that could have served as the dagger. Still, the Suns were in good position to pull out the victory as long as they could avoid surrendering a three-pointer.
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They did, in a way, though fouling Lillard on a lay-up attempt was just as bad as giving up an open three. He converted the free throw to finish the three-point play and tie it at 115-115.
The Suns called a timeout to put together a winning play with all of 6.4 seconds on the clock. The Cubs ended their epic World Series drought during that stoppage in an event so major that Phoenix play-by-play announcer Steve Albert essentially decided it was more important to describe the significance instead of setting up the play. To Albert’s credit, he retired in time to call Bledsoe’s buzzer-beating three-pointer:
Congratulations to the Phoenix Suns, winners of a 118-115 thriller. Their first win of the 2016-17 season ends a winless run going all the way back to April 13. That’s only 199 times shorter than the Cubs waited between World Series!
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!Follow @FreemanEric