It's Christmas Day and the San Antonio Spurs played the perfect Scrooge to the Phoenix Suns and their fans as the Spurs presented another dagger to their collective hearts, beating the Suns on Roger Mason's three at the buzzer, 91 - 90.
I caught the game on TV with the Suns jumping to a 11 - 0 start. There was a noticeable bounce on Shaq as he seem to be his old self. I really enjoyed Shaq and Tim Duncan going at each other like in their past and Shaq getting the better of it. The half ended with the Suns up by six, 45 - 39.
In the third, the Spurs once again employed the hack-a-shaq to the boos of the Phoenix crowd but Shaq made some of the free throws and the Suns stayed on top 76 - 71.
The Spurs turned the game into the grind-out defensive game that they mastered.
Shaq ties it at 84 all after a soft foul was called on Duncan with under five minutes left in the game. Duncan then took the ball away from Shaq for a Parker lay in. On the ensuing play, Shaq was able to get the fifth foul on Duncan. But Parkers connects on a jumper for an 88 - 84 Spurs lead.
But the Suns were not done yet. Richardson connects on an open corner three and Nash makes the technical free throw called against Parker to tie it at 88 the that set up the wild finish.
The Spurs defense trapped Nash on the corner forcing him to call the Suns last timeout with 7.7 seconds left. On the next play, Amare makes a great pass on a cutting Grant Hill on the baseline to take the lead 90 - 88 with only 4.3 ticks left in the game.
Coach Poppovich brought in his 3 point shooters including Roger Mason and let Parker create on the final possession. With Grant Hill all over him, Parker dished out to Mason on the corner for the game winner.
