Mirza Teletovic hits off-balance game-winning fadeaway as Suns stun Bulls
Following four straight close losses capped by a final-possession flameout in Memphis and facing a 16-point deficit after a dismal third quarter against the Chicago Bulls, the Phoenix Suns seemed poised to pack it in and accept an awful end to their Eastern road swing. Instead, they’ll be bringing something a lot sweeter than the sour taste of a five-game losing streak back to Arizona.
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After managing just 10 points on 4-for-20 shooting in the third quarter, the Suns opened up the fourth with a furious flurry behind shooting-heavy lineups led by Brandon Knight, outscoring Chicago 28-13 through the first eight minutes to cut the Bulls’ lead to one with four minutes remaining in regulation. A shaken Bulls squad rebounded, as point guard Derrick Rose generated nine straight points — four for himself, two on a pick-and-roll feed for a Pau Gasol jumper, and three more by whipping a crosscourt feed that would turn into a hockey assist when Nikola Mirotic redirected the ball to Jimmy Butler for a left-wing 3-pointer — that kept Chicago up five, 101-96, with 1:51 remaining.
Counterpart Eric Bledsoe responded in kind, setting up rookie Devin Booker for a catch-and-shoot triple and taking a picked-off Gasol pass coast-to-coast for a tough finish that knotted the game at 101 heading into the final minute. The two teams traded stops, leaving Phoenix with the ball inside the last 24 seconds with a chance to compete their comeback and head home happy after four straight fourth-quarter failures.
Suns power forward Mirza Teletovic sprints from the right block to the top of the key to set a high screen for Bledsoe, who’s headed to his right with a head of steam. Bledsoe gets a step on both Rose and help defender Mirotic, leading Gasol — responsible for stretch big man Jon Leuer in the near corner — to lean in Bledsoe’s direction, lest he give up a clean look at a game-winning layup in the closing seconds. Bledsoe takes advantage, shuttling the pass to Leuer for a corner try.
The shot attempt came up empty, but as the four Bulls below the foul line — Gasol, Mirotic, Rose and Butler — watched the shot in the air, Teletovic raced in to crash the offensive glass. He came away with the board — and was perhaps lucky not to get whistled for an over-the-back foul on Rose, who went crashing to the deck — before taking one dribble, leaning back toward the free-throw line and lofting up an off-balance fadeaway jumper that bounced off the front rim, kissed off the backboard and softly settled in the bottom of the bucket with three-tenths of a second remaining, giving Phoenix a 103-101 come-from-behind win that made the 19-year-old Booker (who finished with 14 points, five assists, three rebounds and a steal in 33 minutes off the bench) feel like getting his Drizzy on:
… and that left Phoenix coach Jeff Hornacek feeling awfully glad he didn’t try to get a quick timeout as soon as Teletovic grabbed the rebound, according to Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic:
“It looked like he was falling off-balance,” Suns coach Jeff Hornacek said. “Do you call a timeout quick? Then I saw him go into his shooting motion and said, ‘Mirza can make some crazy shots.’”
None crazier than the game-winner, of course, which gave the 30-year-old Bosnian — who has bounced back from career-threatening blood clots last season to become a key cog in Hornacek’s frontcourt rotation — a season-high-tying 20 points on 7-for-12 shooting, including a 4-for-6 mark from 3-point range, to go with four rebounds, two assists and two blocks in 31 1/2 minutes.
Teletovic’s timely rebound and putback pushed Phoenix over the hump, but it was Knight’s fantastic shooting — 17 of his 21 points came in the final frame — that sparked the comeback, as the Suns finished the game with a season-best 42-point fourth quarter to end their six-game East Coast trip with a big win that improved their record to 9-13 on the season. From John Jackson of The Associated Press:
“I know we put ourselves in position to win, but nothing’s given in this league,” Knight said. “You have to go out and take it. After losing three or four games like that, I think we realize that. That’s what we did tonight.” […]
“This has been a crazy trip for us,” coach Jeff Hornacek said. “Start in Toronto, have a great win there, then we have four games in a row that we have leads in the fourth. Then, we come out and be down 16 on the last game of six games in nine nights.
“The guys could have easily quit and they didn’t. They kept playing and they made some plays and pulled out what’s a big win for us.”
That they were able to do so, of course, doesn’t exactly speak well for how the Bulls’ defense held up after an excellent showing through three quarters. From K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune:
“You have to have that killer instinct,” coach Fred Hoiberg said. “We have yet to find it this year.”
[…] At one point, they scored on 12 of 13 possessions. Brandon Knight sliced and diced the defense to score 17 of his 21 points in the final quarter.
“The urgency just wasn’t the same,” Hoiberg said. “They got comfortable, got into a rhythm. And when we did get a stop, they got a rebound.”
That certainly was the story on the biggest play of the game. Whether the problems that cropped up throughout the fourth quarter were the result of a team still learning the ropes of a new head coach’s system, as Taj Gibson suggested after the game, or a matter of Hoiberg struggling to identify and deploy his best lineups, or “a heart thing,” as Gasol put it, it sure seems to be something, and as a result, the Bulls have now dropped two in a row for the first time this season.
The 11-7 team walks away grumbling, and the 9-13 club flies home feeling fine. What a difference a few tenths of a second can make in the NBA.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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