(AP Photo/Matt York) Whether it’s bad Karma, bad luck or poor defense the Suns have, more often than not, been on the losing side of close games this season.

“We haven’t had much luck with last-second shots, game-winners, walk-off game-winners this year” said Coach Porter after the game.

With the “Christmas Shot” by Roger Mason still hurting, this time it was Danny Granger hitting a game winning shot with 0.9 seconds left on the game clock to give Indiana a 113-110 win over the Suns.

Stoudemire led the Suns with 23 points and 11 rebounds while Hill and Barbosa scored 18 points, Barnes and Nash added 16 each. The absence of Shaq (put with back spasm) allowed Amundson to play 25 minutes: Louis made the best of his chance scoring 9 points and grabbing a career-high 14 rebounds (9 offensive).

The Suns had the game in their grasp after Barbosa hit a 3-pointer with 45 seconds left before Granger scored 5 consecutive points.

Granger (like Mason) hit a great shot, but, again, the Suns failed to defend the play. I was not asking for a block or a steal…just decent defense. Granger had to hit the shot with Grant Hill or Matt Barnes in his face, not Nash tryng to close in on him.

Phoenix was trying to protect themselves from an easy 2-point shot but there’s not a good reason in the world why you should let the best Pacers player receive the ball off the inbound pass.  

This time it was Nash missing the defensive assignment. With less than one second left why was Nash on the court? Why not put Barnes back in the game?

The Suns inability to get the key defensive stop is killing them (and us in the making). It killed the Suns chance in the playoffs over the past 3 years maybe.   

The loss ended a 3-game winning streak by the Suns (19-13) who will now face the Mavs (21-13) in Phoenix. In the wild West the Suns are now tied with Utah for the last playoffs place in the Conference. 

Yours truly, Steve Fan