For a moment, as he broke into the open court all alone, it looked like Chris Paul was thinking about dunking it.
“The emotions are happy, grateful, tired, relieved,” Suns coach Monty Williams said.
“We were hyped, man,” Suns guard Devin Booker said of the postgame atmosphere.
To answer Booker’s question, the last time the Suns were in the conference finals was the 2009-10 season, when Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers defeated Steve Nash and the Suns in six games.
Paul scored 37 points on 14-for-19 shooting in the Game 4 closeout, capping off a series nothing short of magnificent.
‘You can’t do this.’ This ain’t about me, it’s about us,” Paul said on the court postgame.
Throughout the season, Paul’s control of the game was on display and his influence on the young Suns clear as he asserted himself at key moments to spark runs.
After the Suns dispatched the defending champion Lakers in six games, the Nuggets posed a new challenge with the league’s MVP and a contrasting style.
Paul and Williams stayed close even as they went their separate ways, and after tragedy hit Williams in 2016 when his wife, Ingrid, was killed in a car accident, Paul offered support.
Since their run more than a decade ago under Mike D’Antoni and the Seven Seconds or Less revolution, the Suns have largely disappeared from Western contention.
“It’s a feeling that’s kind of hard to put into words,” Booker said.