John Walters

"Nooooooooooooooooooo!"

As Tim Duncan set his feet and then lofted what would be his first successful 3-point shot of the 2007-08 NBA season, fans of the Phoenix Suns cringed. Sure they saw Duncan, the San Antonio Spurs' two-time NBA Most Valuable Player, who has helped end the Suns' postseason four times in the past 10 years, but they also saw John Paxson of Chicago in 1993. And Mario Elie of Houston in 1995.

They saw a team that yet again appears to be rattlesnake-bitten in the playoffs. Suns fans, welcome to the 2008 NBA playoffs: Where Anguish Happens.

Oh, it was awful. A fan listening to longtime announcer Al McCoy's broadcast of the game lost control as he was driving and drove his golf cart into a ball-washer. Breast-enhancement surgery consultations were canceled -- and not just for teenage patients. At the Kierland Commons shopperia in Scottsdale, someone was even spotted reading a book. Not a self-help book, a book-book.

Call it the Valley of the Stunned.

And any comments about it only being Game 1 were quickly washed away by an impressive Spurs win in Game 2 on Tuesday.

The Suns lost a wildly entertaining but ultimately excruciating double-overtime contest in Game 1, 117-115, to the defending NBA champs last Saturday in San Antonio. They blew a 16-point first half lead, but every Suns worshipper expected that to happen: Phoenix is the NBA's best first-half team.

Phoenix, in signature form, outplayed San Antonio in all but the game's final moments. They allowed a game-tying three with 0:15 left in regulation by Michael Finley, another such shot by Duncan, a buzzer-beater, in the first overtime, and a game-winning lay-up by Manu Ginobili with 1.8 seconds left in the second overtime.

"Heartbreak hotel," as McCoy, the voice of the franchise since 1972, would say. As cover-your-eyes television goes this spring, only the love scene between Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney in "John Adams" is more troubling.

Then again, it was only Game 1. It was only the opening playoff contest of a Western Conference tournament so exacting that it's a wonder any team will survive and win three consecutive series. Someone has to, by design, but there are times when you wonder if the playoffs out west will end like "Reservoir Dogs," with everyone taking down one another.

The Suns are not looking past San Antonio, however. Nor are their fans, dubbed "Planet Orange" last September by the team's marketing staff, a diligent if not astronomically savvy bunch. The Spurs may be the defending NBA champions, but they are also the team that has eclipsed the Suns in the postseason three times in the past five seasons.

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