It was a historic win for the Phoenix Suns as they rallied back from being down 26 points in the second quarter to pull off the exhilarating 107-105 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. Early in the second quarter the 42-16 deficit seemed insurmountable, but head coach Alvin Gentry apparently delivered a whale of a halftime speech.
"There was not a PG version of what I said at halftime," said Gentry after the game.
That speech inspired a defensive effort that was unbelievable to see as they forced eight turnovers that led to 14 fast break points in the second half, defense leading into offense. The defense was spearheaded by the play of Goran Dragic and his ball pressure full-court against great young athletes like Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters as he almost played himself to being literally physically sick.
"I don't know about right now, but I feel really really good," said Dragic after the game about his fatigue in the second half. "I almost threw up. I am still young so I will be ok."
The adrenaline was really flowing for the team after the game and it was hard to put a performance like this into words. Falling behind like this is not something the team can do with consistency, but rather they need to put together a full four quarters to win games.
Gentry preached that after the game:
"In this league you really do have to play the whole 48 minutes. We have been there where we are up 14 and then we are down 16. My whole thing was don't have long faces and everyone has to lift each other up. We have to truly believe we can do this, chip away, chip away, and find an opportunity in the final three minutes. You have to believe that. In the end we got it done, but I don't want the long faces I want us to believe that when we get ourselves in trouble we can bail ourselves out with getting stops and not just by trading baskets."
This was a major win and a historical one in the end, something that Dragic has grown accustom to in a Phoenix Suns uniform over the years. He knows that the team cannot fall behind like this consistently and even joked about it after the game.
"We won by two points?" asked Dragic. "Maybe we could have fallen behind 27 then."