Devin Booker sat in a chair with a crooked and swollen nose, complete with tape over three fresh stitches.
He also had a big smile on his face, remembering Jae Crowder’s pass, Deandre Ayton’s tip-in dunk and a play that will live in Phoenix Suns lore for a long, long time.
Ayton jammed an alley-oop pass from Crowder with 0.7 seconds left, lifting the Suns to a 104-103 win over the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday night in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals.
It was a game that looked as if it was all but over, but Booker’s Suns were not going to be denied.
“I believed it could happen,” Booker said. “100 percent.”
The Suns were down one with 0.9 seconds left when Crowder lofted a high pass on an out-of-bounds play on the baseline. A soaring Ayton came down the lane and stuffed it through the net over L.A.’s Ivica Zubac as the crowd roared in disbelief. Booker — playing with a stitched up nose following a collision with Clippers guard Patrick Beverley — had a key screen on Zubac on the final play, which helped free Ayton.