Suns show heart of Falcons

The Cactus Shadows baseball team showed everybody earlier this month that even if it didn’t have the best talent in the state, it had the most heart. A similar trend seems to be developing with the Phoenix Suns–where toughness is winning out over talent.

Anybody who has watched the Suns over the past two or three decades knows that this year’s Suns team is not the team’s best. It’s not the best scoring team. (That honor goes to Cotton Fitzsimmons’ “Purple Gang” lead by Tom Chambers and Kevin Johnson in the late 1980s and early 1990s.) It’s not the best defensive team. (In fact, it may be their worst.) And it’s not even their most entertaining team. (Let’s not forget, Sir Charles ruled the throne for a few years.)

But nobody can argue that this is not the toughest Suns team ever assembled. Like Cactus Shadows’ baseball team, which wasn’t given much of a chance this year after losing most of its pitching staff from the year before, most “experts” had the Suns faring no better than middle of the pack in the Western Conference this season. After all, once it was learned that franchise forward Amare Stoudemire would miss much of the season with a knee injury, the Suns figured to tank it.

Then again, everybody seemed to forget that point guard Steve Nash was named Most Valuable Player for a reason. Nash’s will to win propelled the Suns to their first ever back‑to‑back Pacific Division championship this season–the first of many amazing feats the Suns have achieved so far. There was also the comeback from three games to one down to the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs and back‑to‑back series wins in seven games.

No matter how this Western Conference finals series against the Dallas Mavericks ends up, the Suns have accomplished more than anybody could have imagined this year.

Sometimes it takes the unexpected to reach what was once expected. Just look at the Boston Red Sox, who finally broke their World Series drought after unexpectedly rallying from a 3‑0 series deficit to shock the dreaded New York Yankees in the A.L. Championship Series.

The Suns have surely had better teams in the past that probably should have won the NBA title. All that was missing, fans always thought, was a dominating big man. Maybe all it will take is a little heart.

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