Secret is out

Phoenix Suns Coach Jay Triano let the world in on a little secret

Tuesday.

With 0.6 seconds remaining and his team tied with the Memphis

Grizzlies, Triano found the perfect opportunity to use a play he’d had up his sleeve for some time. Suns forward Dragan Bender lobbed an inbound pass toward the rim, over the arms of Memphis center Brendan Wright and into the hands of Phoenix center Tyson Chandler, who threw down the game-winning alley-oop dunk with time to spare.

“I was trying to create a play where you could score with like three-tenths of a second or something, and I just thought this was a good time to do it,” Triano told reporters after the game. “I put it in about two or three days after I took over the job here, and it’s a rule a lot of people don’t know. You cannot goal tend a ball that isn’t going to count, so I told our guys, ‘Shoot the ball in the basket, and all Tyson has to do is touch it on the way down or grab the rim and have it hit your knuckle and go in.’

“I asked the officials when they come and do their clinics and seminars with the coaches. I asked them that 15 years ago when I was in Toronto. I asked them about it, and they had to go back and look at it. I’ve tried to keep it a secret, and it’s not a secret anymore.”

The Suns’ victory was Triano’s 100th as an NBA head coach.

Triano