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After a double overtime Game 1 loss, the Suns were gladiators; but for a gaffe or two and some San Antonio luck, Phoenix essentially beat the World Champions on the road.

Game 2, however, was different. The Suns lost this game.

A team with a short bench and a lack of youth is getting very little from a gimpy Grant Hill, who was supposed to be a key stopper. Leandro Barbosa has never played very well against the Spurs, and Boris Diaw hasn't been helping.

The other Suns are playing well, but need to be superhuman to overcome those odds against a great team.

Say you play Game 1 over ten times, then Phoenix probably wins eight of them. So, in effect, Phoenix has only really been beaten once.

And you don't want to over-react to what was, in effect, one real loss. You don't want to be that fan, that sportswriter, that player, that coach -- who projects too much based on a game or two.

But at the end of last night's game, now that the Suns are down 0-2, a hole few teams have ever crawled out of, you can't help but wonder: What happens if Phoenix loses this series?

Try that idea on for size.

No arguing they are an elite team. But they are an elite team that has sacrificed everything from draft picks to Shawn Marion to win in the West right now. If they don't win right now, when will they?

I could see bringing the same crew back. But I could also see an owner and GM deciding to head in another direction

We're not there yet.

This is not the end of the road in this series. This is not the end of the road for this team. But from where we are right now, for the first time in recent Suns' history, you can kind of smell the end, right? You can at least imagine the notion that this is a team that will look pretty darned different before they win a title.

If they win Game 3, that changes everything. But today the outlook is surely cloudy. And Sun fans are feeling it.

TrueHoop reader Tim -- a Spurs fan -- did a little field research among the Suns fans, and emails:

I was curious to what Suns fans might be thinking this morning -- the body language of their coach and team signaled defeat after last night's loss -- and popped into one of their message boards. After a few minutes of perusing through the comments, I felt bad for them. Not in a "those poor suckers" sort of way, but in a "my heart goes out to you" sort of way.

No one is complaining about refs or dirty players or flops. They're just asking whether or not their window is closed. They're asking if that which they've rooted for for so long is passing by. The prospect of death is in the air and the mourning, perhaps prematurely, has begun.

Bill Simmons once opined that the Barkley Suns were the best team never to win a championship, and maybe that's right. It's doubtless that that team's missed opportunity still lingers in the mind of Sun die-hards. They ran up against Michael Jordan and did all they could. But it wasn't enough.

The Suns' current team is similar. They're great -- a team that has been tremendous for basketball fans and the Association. But they've run up against Tim Duncan and can't negotiate safe passage.

Strangely, the Shaq version of the Suns represents their best option of overcoming their arch-nemesis. Can you imagine how gut-wrenching this must be for the Phoenix faithful? Has Steve Nash ever beat a Duncan led team in the playoffs? Is he playing all those past losses in his mind this morning? It's enough to make one sick.

I really believe Phoenix ought to win this series. They're playing better, they have a better roster. The stars have performed well for each team but right now the Spurs are simply winning on coaching and heart. Over the first two games, the Suns have been in a position to bury the champs at home. It's a microcosm of the team's recent history with one another -- the Suns tease us with their potential and give the look of an eventual champ and yet they ultimately collapse and succumb to defeat.

That pattern is stuck on repeat and the poor Suns fans wake-up each day to relive it.

It's no wonder they hate the Spurs.

UPDATE: TrueHoop reader and Suns fan Kevin asks that you please don't weep for him:

I am not giving up or grieving, and I do not see this as the last chance, the series is not over and this team has come back from worse odds to win. Whether we get past the Spurs this year or not, this team has been built to last for years to come. I would like Nash to win one, Hill as well, maybe even Shaq get his 5th if only to have more than Duncan. But, this is not over, I find it tiring hearing and reading all these sports analysts put so much on a game two, for any of these matchups. Have we forgotten this is a year out of the norm. A year that the 8 West team all have over 50 wins and only are separated by 7 wins. Also, I do hate the Spurs, the first thing I did after the game was instant message my best friend and write 'i hate the spurs.'