WCF Game 5: Phoenix Suns, Meet Erwin Schrödinger

Steve Nash shot a three and missed it. Then Jason Richardson shot a three and missed it. Then Richardson shot another three, this time draining it. With three seconds to go, the Suns had capped a comeback from an 18-point deficit. The Staples Center crowd couldn’t believe it, but no one from Phoenix was surprised. They’ve seen this sort of thing happen all year.

And somewhere, the ghost of Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger is looking down and smiling.

Wait, what?

Hold tight for a second while I explain. Schrödinger proposed a thought experiment called Schrödinger’s Cat, which boils down to the idea that if you put a cat in a box and a random event (in his case, the half-life of radioactive material) determines whether the cat lives or dies, then after a certain amount of time, you have to simultaneously assume that the cat is both alive and dead. At least, until you open the box and find out for sure.

To me, that idea sums up the 2010 Phoenix Suns perfectly.

More than any other team (even the Golden State Warriors), the Suns are never out of any game, no matter what the score. They could be losing by 50 points and still rip off an incredible run to tie it up. I’ve lost track of how many lightning-quick 10-0 runs Phoenix has made this year. They make a three, get a quick transition dunk, another three off a long miss, then pick up a couple of foul shots, and boom, that’s ten points. It all happens in about thirty seconds, just quick enough for you to scratch your head and wonder what just happened. When the Suns are on the floor, the only safe lead is the one you have when the final horn sounds.

It works the other way, though. The Suns might be up by 15, but with their porous defense, all it takes is a couple of missed threes and long rebounds, and suddenly the other team is ripping off a huge run. We saw that countless times last night in Game 5. One minute the Suns would be in control of the game, and suddenly the Lakers would be unable to miss a shot and be picking up every rebound. Like their offense, these defensive lapses happen in the blink of an eye. A tie game can turn into a ten-point hole before you know what’s happening.

And that’s where Schrödinger comes into play. For years, Phoenix has felt like at any given moment they’re simultaneously both up by 50 and down by 50. When they’re hot and hitting those threes, they seem unbeatable. And when those threes aren’t falling, you feel like they would struggle against a team of fifth graders. There’s no middle ground. You just have to go along with the ride and wait until the final horn to open the box and find out if the cat is alive or dead.

For three seconds in Game 5, I thought the cat was going to make it. I’ve seen more games end with a barrage of desperation threes than I care to count, yet somehow I knew one of them was going in tonight. And yet at the same time, somehow I knew the Lakers were going to put that game away, and I knew Kobe Bryant was going to be involved. For those three seconds, the cat was simultaneously alive and dead, held alive by a random event (in this case, a contested Kobe three), and waiting for us to open that box and determine its fate.

Some nights, the Phoenix offense is rolling and keeps the cat alive. Some nights, it’s falling apart, and the cat dies under a ton of bricked threes. Yet in either case, the game never feels entirely out of reach for the Suns. Last night was an especially dramatic example, as it came down to the last three seconds and an improbable Ron Artest putback, but it all comes to the same thing. The only safe lead with the Suns is the one you have after the horn sounds.

Last night, we opened the box and found a dead cat. Strangled by Ron Artest.

Saturday night, it could turn out entirely differently. It could also be exactly the same.

We won’t know until we open that box.