Sunday, Jason Richardson missed a game-tying dunk against the Spurs, and the Suns went on to lose. Last night, with Phoenix again down two, Richardson successfully threw down a monster jam off a missed shot, but the Suns still couldn’t prevail against Utah. It was a lot like the 2004 Dunk Contest, with Richardson’s rim-rattling dunks coming in a losing effort, except that the killer blow in this game was a three-pointer by Mehmet Okur, and Okur has a vertical leap of approximately nine inches.

(Photo by Barry Gossage/NBAE via Getty Images)

THE WORLD NEEDS MORE OUTDOOR BASKETBALL

Back in Time: June 11 

Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley | 1993

Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls and Charles Barkley of the Phoenix Suns each scored 42 points in Chicago’s 111-108 victory, marking the first time in NBA Finals history that opposing players each scored 40 or more points in a Finals game.