Suns

It is never just the losing when it comes to the San Antonio Spurs.

To the Suns, it's the excruciatingly painful fashion in which it occurs. Coping with Saturday's 117-115 double-overtime loss in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series overnight must have felt like sleeping on a bed of nails.

"I'm going to go home and watch it on instant classics," San Antonio's Brent Barry said when the drama ended.

The Suns do not need a replay. Visions of wasted opportunities to steal the Spurs' home-court advantage will race through their minds until they reconvene here Tuesday for Game 2.

It was the 16-point first-half lead the Suns held before foul trouble to AmarÐ"© Stoudemire, Shaquille O'Neal and Boris Diaw caught up with them and allowed San Antonio to close the gap to eight by halftime.

It was holding a lead for nearly all of the game until the final four minutes of regulation.

It was leading 93-90 with the ball, but getting a shot-clock violation before surrendering a tying 3-pointer to Michael Finley and having Leandro Barbosa miss a potential winning shot.

It was leading 104-101 with 12.6 seconds to go, when Stoudemire fouled out on a charge into former Suns big man Kurt Thomas and set up Tim Duncan's chance to tie the score on his first 3-pointer this season.

It was watching another backup's winning shot miss, when Diaw's 11-foot fadeaway couldn't fall in the spare seconds after Duncan's overtime miracle.

It was having Steve Nash make a tough 3-pointer to tie the score with 15.7 seconds to go in double-overtime, only to give up a winning, Manu Ginobili driving basket with 1.8 seconds to go and no timeouts remaining.

It was nightmarish.

"It's really disappointing, because we had the game won a few times," Nash said. "We just made too many mistakes to close it out."

Instead of anything good happening for Phoenix in crucial situations, the Suns now are playing into a headwind. Only 21.8 percent of Game 1 losers have gone to win NBA best-of-seven playoff series.

"I feel good about the way we played," Suns guard Raja Bell said. "We let it slip, and they hit some big shots. It hurts, but I can't be mad at it."

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