One of the most challenging tasks in sports is to pick yourself up off the mat after a devastating championship defeat. In a moment where you gave it your all, where the peak of your professional sphere was within grasp, you fell short. Any ensuing effort, by comparison, doesn’t feel worth the trouble anymore. Why try? Failure will be inevitable and only heartbreaking again. It’s here, in this mental space, where many runner-ups suffer letdowns or hangovers. They’re not as stellar, not as hungry, not as healthy, or all three, and they don’t meet expectations. They don’t even come close to the bar.
That is decidedly not a problem for this year’s Suns.
We’re nearing the 2022 NBA All-Star Game, a natural break in the action, and the Suns are an astonishing 41-10. They’ve won 11 of their last 12 games in the approximate last month, including victories over other heavyweights like the Jazz (twice) and Nets. This sort of dominance, of course, comes after they lost one of the more exciting but exhaustive NBA Finals in recent memory to the Bucks last June.
