Ben Passes Out as Grant Hill Hits Last Second Shot

Oh. My. God.

I'll admit it. I wanted this win more so than any other win this season. The Suns have had it hard thus far with the rough start, new coach/style, and high expectations. Now, the recent trade for Jason Richardson and facing a 17-5 Magic team. This game could've been disaterous.

But the Suns proved how resilient they can be. And Jason Richardson gave us a glimpse of what he can bring to the Suns. 21 points, 3 assists, 3 rebounds, 50% shooting and he had 1 hour of training camp. Suns win 113 - 112. As a team, we started off slow but eventually turned up the heat on the fast break and swarming Howard defensively.

Perhaps the best part of the win was seeing how much the players wanted it.

Richardson, Nash, Amare 21 points each. Nash was smiling and pumping his fist after a good pass. Amare was excited and energetic with 14 rebounds. Grant Hill hit the winning shot. Matt Barnes was his usual man-crush-awesome self. Robin Lopez even contributed to the game, Jared Dudley got some minutes, and Leandro Barbosa had some solid makes.

Jason Richardson had some great post moves and showed that the defense is going to have to take him into account every game. He also had a sick alley-oop dunk (backwards) that made everyone jump out of their seats.

More importantly, the crowd was going nuts. It's been a while since we've seen the crowd that excited for a Suns game. The Suns played with energy. They played with heart. They never gave up. They played hard.

They played the way we are used to see them playing.

And for the first game with our new staff against an elite team, the outlook is promising.