Phoenix Suns shock San Antonio Spurs 105-101 in OT

Talk about an upset. The bottom three teams in the West: Suns, Hornets and Kings all have a record of 20-39 each. In contrast the San Antonio Spurs have the best record in the NBA with 45-14. It was 45-13 until today before the Phoenix Suns dropped them to 45-14.

The Spurs were 22-2 at home and the Suns were 6-24 on the road. The Phoenix Suns defeated the San Antonio Spurs in overtime today at San Antonio while the Suns are 25 games behind the Spurs this season. The Spurs may have had an extensive scouting report on the Suns, but that probably did not include a Jermaine O’Neal report, who visited the Hot Tub Time Machine. “Jermaine played great,” Duncan said. “He got the best of me. He looked great, made great moves and finished.”

The training staff at Phoenix is famous for resurrecting old legs and shaving ages off of them. The Suns got 22 points from Jermaine O’Neal on 8 of 14 shooting with 13 rebounds. “Tonight was a great team effort against the best team in the NBA on their court. For us, we’re obviously not in the playoff run, but it’s about trying to be a better team. Games like these are what build character and put us in the right direction,” said Jermaine O’Neal. Marcus Morris added 11 points. Luis Scola gave them 15 points. Marcin Gortat, the Polish Hammer had 7 points and 15 rebounds.

The Spurs may have a couple of players who are trying to rush back prematurely from their injuries. First it was Gary Neal who tried to play through his injury earlier. Coach Popovich was not happy about that. “He’s got to be out for a couple games more, I think,” Popovich said. “He hasn’t been very forthcoming about it. He’s tried to play through it, which isn’t always the smartest thing to do. Thinking back to Golden State, he shouldn’t have played a minute in that game, and none of us knew it because he didn’t let people really know. So we’re going to watch him closely since he won’t watch himself.”

The same could be said of Tony Parker today. He had missed the last game because of a sore right triceps, but he was in action today. Coach Pop wasn’t convinced that Parker needed to be rested today too. “It’s an individual thing,” Popovich said. “Some guys, once they get injured, they’re out for the duration. Other guys want to play through. It’s a very individual thing. With Gary and Tony, they really want to be out on the court. I guess most of our guys are like that now that I think about it, so we really have to watch them.” Parker was 9 of 20 from the field with 22 points and 8 assists. Those are good numbers but looking at the way Parker has been playing this season, Parker could have done a whole lot more.

This was the second consecutive overtime win for the Suns. They defeated the Timberwolves yesterday. Today they were down 11 to the Spurs in the fourth quarter. But they pushed to tie the game on this shot by Wes Johnson:

The Spurs were woeful in overtime. They went 0-10 from the field and their only points in the extra period came on free throws.

The Spurs and Suns had a tough rivalry going, some say it is still going strong but to me unless the Suns can make up for the absence of Steve Nash and play respectable ball, it’s not really a rivalry. The Suns had been on the receiving end of this rivalry for the longest, but the 2010 playoffs changed things as the Suns swept the Spurs. Goran Dragic played a major role in that one and he was instrumental in defeating the Spurs today as well. Dragic had 13 points and 13 assists and did a good job on Tony Parker.

For the Spurs, Tim Duncan scored 19 points and had 11 rebounds. Manu Ginobili had 10 points on 2 of 8 shooting. Kawhi Leonard had 15 points with 4 assists. DeJuan Blair added 15 off the bench on 7 of 9 shooting with 6 rebounds.

Here are the highlights from this game: