Ouch

You can still call me Rasheed Wallace...because I was wrong. The Suns didn't beat the Spurs last night despite being in control for 11/12ths (appx. 44 of 48 minutes) of the game.

Everything looked to be going to plan early. The Suns were flying around, the arena was deafening, Shawn Marion kept caughing up shots from just in front of his face and somehow they were going in, and PHX was defending. 13 1st quarter points? 33 first half points? I thought PHX would have to run them off the court, but they were locking 'em down.

But even with all that going on, I kept looking at the score and feeling shocked that the lead wasn't 5 or 6 points more. Give credit to the Spurs, they took all those body shots early and, like the grizzled old champs they are, still had enough in the end to put the tiring Suns down with 32 4th quarter points.

I thought that the "us against the world" angle would be enough, but by the end it was evident the Suns needed Stoudemire. As good as Nash is, he's not a go to scorer down the stretch. You can't give him the ball and say "Here, get us some points." The Suns, however, had no other options last night so that's what they did and lost. I promised you they wouldn't, but they did. Thanks Stu Jackson.

The series now stands Phoenix 2 San Antonio 2.5 the NBA 0.5, heading to Texas for Game 6.