Spurs break Suns hearts again, steal 2OT win

SAN ANTONIO - The Suns have lost too many games here to count, so by now it would stand to reason that the Spurs might have run out of new wrinkles to trip Phoenix up.

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Then San Antonio rolls out a Tim Duncan game-tying 3-pointer with three seconds left in overtime — and the hunt for the drawing board begins anew.

“I asked him if he was kidding,” Suns guard Raja Bell.

“It’s something we really didn’t have a game plan for,” Amaré Stoudemire said. “If he hits that … God bless him.”

Divine intervention or not, the Spurs still found enough at the bottom of their silver-and-black bag of tricks to outlast the Suns 117-115 in a double-overtime classic at a deafening AT&T Center.

Instead of stealing Game 1, Phoenix had its own pocket picked.

“I guess they’re not going to go easy,” coach Mike D’Antoni said.

Duncan hadn’t hit a 3-pointer all year (0-for-4) and was 1-for-13 (8.5 percent) over the last five postseasons. But there he was, alone at 25 feet after Manu Ginobili drove into the lane and kicked out. Bell sprinted toward the big man, but it was too late.

“He was the third option,” San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said. “You can imagine my horror when it went his direction.”

But Duncan’s jaw never dropped. “I’m very confident (in that shot),” he joked. “I just don’t think anybody else is.”

The defending champs hit all the big shots when it mattered. Michael Finley sent the game to overtime with a clutch 3-pointer, while Ginobili hit the game winner over Bell with 1.8 seconds left in the second overtime.

But the Suns will rue all the chances they had to claim the game for themselves. They were in command, even after Shaquille O’Neal was limited to less than five minutes in the first two quarters by foul trouble.

Even after a 16-point lead was sliced in half due to a sloppy last four minutes to end the half. Even when Phoenix’s nine-point lead with nine minutes left evaporated.

“It’s really disappointing because we had the game won a few times,” said Steve Nash, who gave the Suns a last chance to extend things further when his 3-pointer tied the score with 15.7 seconds left in the second overtime. “You can look at a litany of mistakes that we made. Take your pick.”

• The Suns led 93-90 and had the ball with 44 seconds left. But the Suns were called for their only 24-seconds violation of the game, giving the Spurs a chance to tie.

• Phoenix chose not to foul away from the ball with a three-point lead, and Stoudemire didn’t switch on defense when Finley lost Leandro Barbosa with a Fabricio Oberto screen. Finley was unmolested on his 3-pointer.

• Barbosa passed up an open shot early in the final possession of regulation, instead settling for an off-balance 15-footer that missed.

• In the first overtime, the Suns led by five with 2:22 left but got only one shot on their next four possessions, thanks to a turnover and two fouls by Stoudemire, who fouled out with 12.6 seconds left after scoring 33 points in 46 minutes.

“When you play the Spurs, you have little room for error,” Stoudemire said.

• Up by three again, the Suns again passed on a chance to foul away from the ball — setting the stage for Duncan’s unlikely shot.

“I had all the time in the world to line it up,” he said. “I just threw it up there and hoped for the best.”

The Suns were clearly on their heels from there. They never led in the second overtime, but tied the score five times — the last when Brent Barry missed only his second free throw of the year four seconds before Nash buried a 3-pointer to pull even.

But the Spurs had one more big shot in them — although Ginobili’s game winner was from much closer, and Boris Diaw was the biggest Sun on the floor.

“What I knew was that Shaq and Amaré were not there,” Ginobili said. “So if I had a chance to get some legs into the shot, I knew I had a good opportunity. But it’s easier to finish when you are tied, so Tim’s shot and Fin’s shot were greater than mine.”

And when combined, they were just enough to send the Suns away empty-handed again.