It’s time to find out
The Phoenix Suns like to believe they’re a resilient bunch. Now is one of their few chances this season to prove it.
The Suns will be facing an elimination game for the first time in this postseason when they travel to Milwaukee for Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Tuesday night. Phoenix won the first two games of the series before the Bucks rallied to win the next three, including Saturday night’s thrilling 123-119 victory in Game 5.
It’s the first time since January that the Suns have lost three straight games.
Down 3-2 in the NBA Finals is never an ideal situation, especially with the Suns facing Game 6 on the road. But Phoenix centre Deandre Ayton said there’s nothing left to do but embrace the current scenario.
‘’Tables are turned now,’’ Ayton said. ‘’ Now we’re the desperate team. We had our chances of being up and trying to finish the job, now we’re in the same position that they were in. They’re up and now we got to go get it. That’s why it’s a little bit more fun.’’
The Suns missed a great opportunity to take control of the series in Game 5. They jumped out a 37-21 lead in the first quarter but fell apart on defence in the second and third, giving up 79 points over the two quarters.
The Suns nearly pulled off an improbable comeback after trailing by 10 in the final minutes, but Bucks point guard Jrue Holiday ripped the ball out of Devin Booker’s hands and threw a spectacular alley-oop to Giannis Antetokounmpo in the final seconds to secure Milwaukee’s win.
It was a play that looked a lot like several for the Suns offence: Hand the ball to Booker and hope he does something awesome. There were a lot of times that he did and he finished with 40 points. The numbers say that the Suns had a very good offensive performance in Game 5: They shot 55 per cent from the field, 68 per cent on 3-pointers and 91 per cent on free throws.
But Phoenix are at their best when its sharing the basketball on offence, whipping the ball around the perimeter in an effort to find the open man. Without many defensive stops, the offence was often stuck in half court sets. Their 19 3-point attempts were far fewer than their usual 34 per game during the regular season.
Now comes the biggest test yet. The Bucks’ big three of Antetokounmpo, Holiday and Khris Middleton are playing some of their best basketball of the season and the Suns have to find a way to beat them twice.
West Indies Women’s captain Stafanie Taylor says she is happy her team was able to come away with the series win, despite her team going down by 22 runs to Pakistan in the fifth and final ODI in Antigua under the Duckworth Lewis Method.
It was the second straight loss for the women’s team after they lost the fourth game by four wickets.
“We will take away the series win, but when we look back on the two last games, we should have done a lot better. We didn’t see that fight and that urge to finish the series 4-1 which is what we wanted,” said Taylor.
In a game reduced to 36 overs a side due to excessive moisture and the inclement weather, Pakistan made good use of the surface after they were asked to take the first strike.
The visitors posted 190 for eight with wicket-keeper Muneeba Ali top-scoring with 39 from 59 balls with Omaima Sohail chipping in with 34.
Fatima Sana chipped in with four fours in her unbeaten knock of 28 as Chinelle Henry, Shabiki Gajnabi and Anisa Mohammed all picked up two wickets each.
Set a revised target of 194 in 34 overs, the West Indies batters could only manage to get to 171 with Britney Cooper top-scoring with 40 from 53 balls with three fours and a six.
Deandra Dottin made 37 from 47 balls, while Kyshona Knight got 28.
Sana was the star with the ball bagging five for 39, while Diana Baig picked up two wickets for 32 runs.
Meanwhile, Taylor says she was pleased with the efforts of the batters who showed maturity during the series.
“I am pleased with a lot of the batters who really came into their own. I am happy with how Kyshona (Knight) has been batting in the 50 overs game. Britney (Cooper) came good as well, together with
Hayley (Matthews) who topped off with a 100,” said
Taylor.