'Rim' works like a charm as Suns beat Grizzlies on last-second, Tyson Chandler dunk

The play is called “Rim.”

Jay Triano has had it in his back pocket for about 15 years and he installed it shortly after he became the Suns’ interim coach.

“I was trying to create a play where you can score with 0.3 seconds or something,” Triano said.

There were 0.6 seconds left when Triano called timeout against Memphis Tuesday. The Grizzlies, down by nine with 4 minutes and 56 seconds remaining, had tied the game on a Jarrell Martin tip-in dunk. During the timeout, Triano told his players he wanted them to run “Rim.”

“It was kind of crazy,” Dragan Bender said.

The play is designed for the inbounds passer, in this case Bender, to try to throw the ball into the basket, only for center Tyson Chandler to tip it in. The beauty of the play: There’s no goaltending on an inbounds pass.

“It’s a rule that a lot of people don’t know,” Triano said.

Including Chandler, who's a 17-year veteran. When Triano introduced the play to the Suns, Chandler asked him, “It's not goaltending?”

“No,” Triano replied, “It’s not goaltending.”

So here the Suns were, needing to run a play that at first they thought was illegal, a play they had never practiced, to perfection.

As Bender set up on the sideline, Memphis coach J.B. Bickerstaff had center Marc Gasol contest the inbounds pass, leaving the 6-foot-9 Brandan Wright on the 7-1 Chandler.

“As soon as Gasol told Brandan to take me I knew I had a better matchup,” Chandler said.

The pass from Bender was perfect. It was either going in the basket or hitting the back of the rim when Chandler jumped over Wright – “Tyson did a good job using two hands to get some space on Brandan,” Memphis coach J.B. Bickerstaff said – and tipped it in to give the Suns a 99-97 lead.

Bedlam.

Except the officials were heading to the scorer’s table to take a look at the play. The one man in Talking Stick Resort Arena who wasn’t worried, however, was the man who drew up the play.

“I told the one official, ‘You know that you can’t goaltend that,’ ” said Triano, who won his 100th game as an NBA coach. “He was like, ‘I know, I know.’ I think they were probably looking to see if Tyson touched the ball because it’s a violation if it goes straight in and he doesn’t get a piece of it.”

Memphis still had 0.4 seconds left but couldn’t get a shot off before the buzzer. Apparently, the Grizzlies didn’t have “Rim” in their playbook.

“You know, once you look at the play you realize it’s the right play to do,” Bender said. “Like I said, ‘0.6 on the clock it’s really hard to get a good shot off.’ That was the only option.”

Still, to run it to once and it works the first time?

“It was a great pass by Dragan, especially with Gasol on him on the sideline,” Triano said. “It was more of a pass over the top of everyone but I think if you get it up there then Tyson has chance to redirect it and give it a chance to go in, something that we made happen from 30 feet away.

“I’ve tried to keep it a secret. It’s not a secret anymore.”

“Rim” did the impossible, overshadowing the return of Devin Booker to the Suns’ lineup after missing three weeks with a strained left adductor muscle. Booker was his old self, scoring a game-high 32 points on 9-of-21 shooting to go along with five rebounds and six assists before fouling out with 41 seconds left.

Booker played 34 minutes.

“I would have liked to probably not play him so many minutes. I think he fatigued as the game went on,” Triano said. “But he came out of it pretty good. He played great.”

Booker showed off his entire arsenal, including a step-back 3-pointer over Gasol and two first-half lobs that Chandler converted into dunks.

“I knew I was going to be a little winded,” Booker said, “but I was trying to fight through that fatigue mentally and physically.”

Booker felt good afterward. The Suns got a win and he got a big smile talking about the knowledge and audacity of his coach. 

“I thought (Triano) was crazy when he first told us,” Booker said. “I’m thinking if the ball is going in the hoop you can’t touch it.

“That’s coaching right there.”

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