Yesterday, the night of June 23rd we watched yet another instant classic playoff game in this year's NBA's post-season.
Last week it was the Brooklyn Nets and the Milwaukee Bucks, And the Philadelphia 76ers and the Atlanta Hawks who gave us super intense game 7's in both series matchups where we saw the two underdog teams of the Milwaukee Bucks and the Atlanta Hawks win to make it to the eastern conference finals to now face each other.
This time the game to see was on the westside where game 2 of the western conference finals took place between the Phoenix Suns and the Los Angeles Clippers.
After taking the edge with a game 1 win the Phoenix Suns came into this game to take the demanding 2-0 lead.
Although the game's scoring volume was pretty average, it was the intensity of how the points were scored that was the entertaining factor here. Between Ally-oops on multiple occasions, the trick shots that went in, and even the heavily contested 3-pointers that were made. Everything about the game had every real basketball fan's eyes glued to the TV.
Especially the ending, which we will eventually get to
In the first quarter of the game, we saw both teams come out neck and neck and not let each other start to steal the game away and pretty much went bucket for bucket ending the first quarter with the score at 25-22 with the Suns in the lead. In that quarter we saw Devin Booker get defended so well that it took just about the full quarter to get his first field goal and made his first shot with a minute left in the quarter but it was the Sun's center Deandre Ayton along with the Suns guard Cameron Payne who scored 19 of the teams 25 points. And that was just the beginning for Cameron Payne.
In the second quarter, we saw the Los Angeles Clippers this time come out on top with the scoring but only by two points with the second quarter score being 25 to 23, which was odd to me as it took 3 and a half minutes for the Clippers to score their first field goal of the quarter but was eventually able to just outscore the Suns nearing the end of the quarter. In this quarter we saw Deandre Ayton not score a single point after dropping 12 in the previous first quarter and Devin Booker again has a sluggish quarter scoring only 5 points but we saw Cameron Payne continue to light it up, this time ending with 9 points in the quarter going into halftime with 16 points to his name where he still was not finished.
The third quarter starts and the Los Angeles Clippers were able to come out and score the first 4 points of the quarter but then proceeded to commit costly fouls sending the Phoenix Suns players to the free-throw line to get outscored 27-24 in the quarter. Cameron Payne once again was the quarter's high scorer on the floor and with Devin Booker still struggling to get his points up, Cameron got another 7 points just himself to help the team keep the lead heading into the last quarter.
In the fourth quarter, the Los Angeles Clippers knew they had to pull something off to win this game, and they very much almost did. Although the Clippers did outscore the Phoenix Suns 32-29 that quarter and was the only team between the two to score over 30 in a quarter this game, it came down to crunch time which for some players became clutch time and the Clippers had to go on a very late-game run and wasn't able to take the lead until there were just 21 seconds of the game left on the clock. After fighting their way back into the game, Paul George took a clutch mid-range jumper and made it to put the Clippers up by just one.
In those last 20 seconds, there were 2 plays that had to get reviewed which just added the fuel to the intensity fire but it was a crucial moment for the Clippers that pretty much sealed their fate where Paul George got fouled with 8 seconds left in the game and went to the free-throw line to shoot 2 shots. Someone at the caliber of Paul George who has scored an over 80% percent from the free-throw line should have no problem making both shots right? Wrong.
Paul George who has been playing exceptionally since Kawhi has been out just missed the first shot which would have put the Clippers up by 2 points. And then he proceeded to miss the second shot!
*Video Below*
The Phoenix Suns grabbed the rebound off of the missed free-throw and called timeout to advance the ball to the middle of the court and after the inbound play attempted to make a play that ended with Mikal Bridges shooting a 3 pointer, the shot missed and the ball went out of bounds with the Clippers being the last to touch the ball after a video review giving Phoenix the ball back with only 0.8 seconds left on the clock.
Then it happened. With that 0.8 seconds left we saw Phoenix Suns forward Jae Crowder make an in-bound play where he lobbed it up to Deandre Ayton who was able to break away after a screen set by Devin Booker and throw in the alley-oop slam to take the lead by 1.
**Video Below**
With the shot being a quick in-bound play, it only took 0.01 seconds off of the clock and gave the Clippers just one last opportunity to get a shot off to win the game although that did not happen and Paul George not only missed the shot but got the shot off after the buzzer anyway.
Although Deandre Ayton was the savior of the game, my player of the game was for sure Cameron Payne who ended with not only a playoff career-high, but a career-high in general of 29 points along with 9 assists to lead the team to this game 2 victory.
Phoenix Suns are now up 0-2 in the series with game 3 happening Thursday, June,24th.
Hope you guys are able to tune in as I'm sure it will once again be a great game.
Hope you guys enjoyed the read
-Sani