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Trailing the Suns, 109-106 with 1:09 remaining, Portland used two big defensive plays to steal the win.
The first came after Terry Porter sank a pair of free throws to trim the Suns' lead to 109-108 with 55.1 seconds to play. Moments later, Portland's Jerome Kersey came out of nowhere to block a sure two-pointer by Phoenix's Hornacek, who was putting up his patented running one-hander while driving the lane.
Drexler snared the deflection and fired a long pass to the streaking Kersey who sank a layup to give Portland the lead, 110-109, with just 27.2 seconds to play.
The Suns weren't done, however. After a timeout, Phoenix designed a play for Tom Chambers, who had been a Blazer nemesis in the past. But as Chambers started his drive to the basket, Williams stripped him of the ball, pounced on it and then got it to Drexler, who was promptly fouled with 6.9 seconds left.
Drexler made both free throws to make the score, 112-109.
With no timeouts left, the Suns pushed the ball up court, but Hornacek's off-balance, 25-footer was far off line as the buzzer sounded to propel the Blazers to ... well, to the floor actually in a heap of jubilation with Williams on the bottom of the pile.
The Oregonian's beat writer Kerry Eggers called Williams' steal of Chambers the biggest defensive play of the season for the Blazers and arguably the most important defensive play of Williams' great career.
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