In Phoenix: Suns Opening Eyes, Re-Defining The Game
By Tracy Graven
for HOOPSWORLD.com
Jan 23, 2007, 00:00
I've fought this about as long as I can.
As a member of the media, one is supposed to be impartial, so that objectivity overrules bias.
But the way the Phoenix Suns are playing basketball these days, it's getting more and more difficult to remain seated in my chair, mouth shut and simply moving my eyes right to left to right to left to catch every nuance of the game.
All season long, the Suns have been operatic in their execution. If Marie Callas were a basketball player, she'd have been a Phoenix Sun.
She'd have crushed on Mike D'Antoni, falling in love with him for his passionate approach to maintaining the purity of the game, while bastardizing any offenses or defenses opponents try and throw at his team. D'Antoni and the Suns are making it so that watching it is a true, once-in-a-lifetime experience you'll tell your grandchildren about someday.
They've been the gentlemen of the NBA, winning with style and not inciting any riots by running up the score on a feebler opponent.
They were courteous enough to let Memphis nearly come back from 31 down early in the season. They kept road games tight, even letting Mateus The Matador, Leandro Barbosa, throw the last medicated spear into the Bulls at the last second. And leaving four of their last five opponents in games until at least halftime.
You may call it cruelty.
I call it courtesy.
But it's also led me to question whether they really had fire in their belly, or simply some occasional habanero or curry from lunch.
Where was the killer instinct?
They finally found it last night against the Minnesota Timberwolves ... without the fiery play of Ricky Davis. Without the esteemed, All-Star man-child, Kevin Garnett.
They took a team and deflated them, much like the Indianapolis Colts did to the New England Patriots at around the same game time.
Defied expectation. Went against convention, or at least against where recent performance had leveled out.
They saw the Wolves were limping and gutted them in a way that would leave Wes Craven smiling and rumors of an NBA version of The Hills Have Eyes. They'd already given a sneak preview in demolishing the Cavaliers a little over a week earlier, with only one of The LeBrons showing up at the U.S. Airways Center, and I think the special ed one at that.
The final outcome was 131-102, but the Suns had leapt out to leads as high as
“There’s a reason why this team has won almost thirty games in a row, and they played like it tonight," said Minnesota head coach Dwane Casey, who'd all but promised Steve Nash a shave before the game. "Phoenix is one of the best teams I’ve seen in a long time. They got us in transition in the third quarter and they took care of business.”
The third quarter.
As if the first-half thumping wasn't enough, the Suns took a quarter that was often their albatross early in the season and shelled out 46 points to distance themselves from the Wolf pack. Going into the fourth, the Suns led by 33 points and stretched that out to 36 before D'Antoni began subbing bench players into the game.
"Obviously the third quarter was a very good quarter, that's encouraging," said D'Antoni. "Amare really controlled the boards and blocked some shots, more or less controlled the paint. Shawn (Marion) was coming up with some rebounds and 46 points is great offensively."
Phenomenal.
And while that showed the killer instinct we've looked for all season, and freed up enough time to watch the Colts come back against the Patriots, the Suns did the gentlemanly thing once again, putting in what Stoudemire calls "the fitness club" to finish the game with a respectable score and not one that would have to be rated NC-17.
“I think defensively we definitely stepped up to the challenge," said Stoudemire. We came out and played great. Shawn was a beast on the boards tonight. (The 46-point third quarter) was great. We came out strong and we were able to put those guys away and get the fitness club in there in the fourth quarter and we were able to rest up."
Important, since the Suns embarked on a five-games-in-seven-days Eastern Conference road swing that begins in Washington, and goes through New York, Milwaukee, and Cleveland before finishing up in Minneapolis with these very same Timberwolves.
Well, not these Timberwolves. Add Garnett and Davis back into the mix and it's a whole new ballgame ... maybe.
It's hard to tell. Hard to measure the success of the Suns on equal terms. After all, they have all their players, their soon-to-be-named All-Stars. But many of the teams they've played this season have been without theirs, up to and including playing the Wolves sans Davis and Da Kid.
They've missed Kobe Bryant, Kwame Brown, and Chris Mihm in L.A. Pau Gasol wasn't there when the Grizz nearly came back on the Suns in November. Neither was Josh Howard in Dallas' first win of the season, over the Suns. If they want to see Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O'Neal, they'd better thumb through some old 2006 Championship memorabilia -- neither have been on the floor in the two meetings between the team this season.
Houston was without Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming and the Rockets still nearly beat them. Others they have missed fortuitously include Andrei Kirilenko, Jason Richardson twice and Baron Davis once, David West, Joel Przybilla, Bonzi Wells, Charlie Villanueva, Ron Artest, Wally Szczerbiak, Brevin Knight, Hedo Turkoglu, Troy Murphy, Chris Bosh, Jerry Stackhouse, Quentin Richardson, Chauncey Billups, Kirk Hinrich, T.J. Ford, Antoine Walker, James Posey, Rashard Lewis, and Stromile Swift.
Some they will see at All-Star Weekend.
At other times, they still have the opportunity to test themselves against some of the league's best athletes who haven't been there for one reason or another the first time or two around.
"Yeah, we thought about giving some of those wins back," cajoled D'Antoni. “It just means we’re playing well, that we are taking advantage of the schedule. Or some guys that didn’t show up, we’ve had some breaks, but at the same time we are playing good basketball. We haven’t beat ourselves in a lot of games, so it will take somebody to play a great game like Dallas did to beat us or Washington did to beat us. But we’ll just go with it, we’re just really proud of the guys staying focused and doing the job they need to do. We’re a good basketball team, we just need to keep getting better"
With nearly half the season gone, the Suns are playing at a pace that will likely afford them the best record in the league. But they have to continue to improve, as D'Antoni notes ... and urges after each and every game.
"We have faced a few teams recently that have been missing their top scorers and I think it is important for us to play with a lot of intensity and not let down," says Steve Nash.
Letting down wasn't something that happened at all against the Wolves. Everybody that played, scored. And, yes, everybody played.
"You know how I like to play everyone," joked D'Antoni.
Stoudemire led the assault with 25 points and eight rebounds, while Barbosa came off the bench for 20 and Marion showed why he's an All-Star with 17 points and 20 boards, 16 on the defensive glass. Nash had 16 points and 11 assists, and Raja rang the Bell for a dozen, while Boris Diaw finished up with 10 points and seven caroms.
As far as 'the fitness club' goes, James Jones and Marcus Banks had seven apiece, fan favorite Pat Burke added six points and five rebounds, while Jumaine Jones went for five points, Jalen Rose had four and Sean Marks scored a deuce, giving the starters some much-needed rest heading to D.C. to face the team that stopped their last streak.
That's right, if it weren't for that extended stay in snowbound Denver and the hot hand of Gilbert Arenas, the Suns would be talking about winning their 30th out of 31 games. Their only losses since November 19th have come at the hands of the Wizards and Mavericks.
Despite the fact that Arenas has gone on record as saying his next 50-point game won't be until February 11th, the Suns game tomorrow night looms large as one of the best contests of the night ... the week ... maybe the month, to watch.
It's huge, no matter how some may downplay it.
“I’m just thinking about it one game at a time," says Marion wisely. "It is the first game of our road trip, that’s my biggest concern.”
You gotta love the approach.
The attitude.
The demeanor of this team.
There's not much of a swagger. Gentlemen don't do that.
But there is a confidence. And you need to play with supreme confidence, or else you'll lose again, and then losing becomes a habit.
You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them. Have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.
That's the Phoenix Suns.
Damn if they aren't an inspiration to watch.
To keep sitting on my thumbs and zipping my lips while I watch this historic era and style of play first-hand ... it's nearly unbearable to do.
Fun, but difficult.
I don't know if I am that strong.
Damn them.
Damn them all ...
NOTE
After leading the Suns to a perfect 4-0 week and a 13-game win streak, guard Steve Nash was named the NBA Western Conference Player of the Week for January 15-21, the NBA announced today. This is his seventh career NBA Player of the Week honor, second this season and sixth as a Sun for Nash, who also won the weekly award on Dec. 11, 2006, Jan. 8, 2006, Nov. 28, 2005, Feb. 14, 2005, Dec. 27, 2004, and one as a member of the Dallas Mavericks on Dec. 16, 2001.
Nash guided the team to a 4-0 record last week and averaged a league-high 13.8 assists to go along with his 15.5 points on 57.5 percent shooting. The NBA’s assist leader for the third consecutive season dished out at least 11 assists in each game and had a double-double in each game. The 11-year NBA veteran had 12 points and 15 assists in a 137-122 victory at Memphis on Jan. 15, 21 points and 14 dishes in a 100-91 win at Houston on Jan. 17, 13 points and 15 assists in a 106-101 victory vs. Portland on Jan. 19 and 16 points and 11 dimes in a 131-102 triumph vs. Minnesota on Jan. 21.
The reigning back-to-back NBA’s Most Valuable Player is averaging a career-high 19.3 points and a career-high tying 11.5 assists in 38 games played this season, and is on pace to become the first NBA player to average over 19 points and 11 assists in a single season since Magic Johnson and former Sun Kevin Johnson did it in 1989-90. Forward Shawn Marion (14.3 points, team-high 14.8 rebounds, team-high 2.25 blocks, team-high 2.00 blocks) and center Amaré Stoudemire (team-high 28.0 points, 8.8 rebounds, team-high .636 field goal percentage) were also nominees for the award.
The Pacific Division-leading Suns (32-8) will try to extend the NBA’s longest active win streak to 14 games vs. the Southeast Division-leading Washington Wizards (24-16) at 5 p.m. tomorrow at the Verizon Center. The Wizards earlier this season snapped the Suns’ franchise-record 15-game win streak with a 144-139 overtime win in Phoenix on Dec. 22. The contest will be televised locally on My45 and on NBA TV. If the Suns defeat the Wizards, they would become just the fifth team in NBA history to post two separate win streaks of 14 or more in a single season.
http://www.hoopsworld.com/article_20510.shtml
By Tracy Graven
for HOOPSWORLD.com
Jan 23, 2007, 00:00
I've fought this about as long as I can.
As a member of the media, one is supposed to be impartial, so that objectivity overrules bias.
But the way the Phoenix Suns are playing basketball these days, it's getting more and more difficult to remain seated in my chair, mouth shut and simply moving my eyes right to left to right to left to catch every nuance of the game.
All season long, the Suns have been operatic in their execution. If Marie Callas were a basketball player, she'd have been a Phoenix Sun.
She'd have crushed on Mike D'Antoni, falling in love with him for his passionate approach to maintaining the purity of the game, while bastardizing any offenses or defenses opponents try and throw at his team. D'Antoni and the Suns are making it so that watching it is a true, once-in-a-lifetime experience you'll tell your grandchildren about someday.
They've been the gentlemen of the NBA, winning with style and not inciting any riots by running up the score on a feebler opponent.
They were courteous enough to let Memphis nearly come back from 31 down early in the season. They kept road games tight, even letting Mateus The Matador, Leandro Barbosa, throw the last medicated spear into the Bulls at the last second. And leaving four of their last five opponents in games until at least halftime.
You may call it cruelty.
I call it courtesy.
But it's also led me to question whether they really had fire in their belly, or simply some occasional habanero or curry from lunch.
Where was the killer instinct?
They finally found it last night against the Minnesota Timberwolves ... without the fiery play of Ricky Davis. Without the esteemed, All-Star man-child, Kevin Garnett.
They took a team and deflated them, much like the Indianapolis Colts did to the New England Patriots at around the same game time.
Defied expectation. Went against convention, or at least against where recent performance had leveled out.
They saw the Wolves were limping and gutted them in a way that would leave Wes Craven smiling and rumors of an NBA version of The Hills Have Eyes. They'd already given a sneak preview in demolishing the Cavaliers a little over a week earlier, with only one of The LeBrons showing up at the U.S. Airways Center, and I think the special ed one at that.
The final outcome was 131-102, but the Suns had leapt out to leads as high as
“There’s a reason why this team has won almost thirty games in a row, and they played like it tonight," said Minnesota head coach Dwane Casey, who'd all but promised Steve Nash a shave before the game. "Phoenix is one of the best teams I’ve seen in a long time. They got us in transition in the third quarter and they took care of business.”
The third quarter.
As if the first-half thumping wasn't enough, the Suns took a quarter that was often their albatross early in the season and shelled out 46 points to distance themselves from the Wolf pack. Going into the fourth, the Suns led by 33 points and stretched that out to 36 before D'Antoni began subbing bench players into the game.
"Obviously the third quarter was a very good quarter, that's encouraging," said D'Antoni. "Amare really controlled the boards and blocked some shots, more or less controlled the paint. Shawn (Marion) was coming up with some rebounds and 46 points is great offensively."
Phenomenal.
And while that showed the killer instinct we've looked for all season, and freed up enough time to watch the Colts come back against the Patriots, the Suns did the gentlemanly thing once again, putting in what Stoudemire calls "the fitness club" to finish the game with a respectable score and not one that would have to be rated NC-17.
“I think defensively we definitely stepped up to the challenge," said Stoudemire. We came out and played great. Shawn was a beast on the boards tonight. (The 46-point third quarter) was great. We came out strong and we were able to put those guys away and get the fitness club in there in the fourth quarter and we were able to rest up."
Important, since the Suns embarked on a five-games-in-seven-days Eastern Conference road swing that begins in Washington, and goes through New York, Milwaukee, and Cleveland before finishing up in Minneapolis with these very same Timberwolves.
Well, not these Timberwolves. Add Garnett and Davis back into the mix and it's a whole new ballgame ... maybe.
It's hard to tell. Hard to measure the success of the Suns on equal terms. After all, they have all their players, their soon-to-be-named All-Stars. But many of the teams they've played this season have been without theirs, up to and including playing the Wolves sans Davis and Da Kid.
They've missed Kobe Bryant, Kwame Brown, and Chris Mihm in L.A. Pau Gasol wasn't there when the Grizz nearly came back on the Suns in November. Neither was Josh Howard in Dallas' first win of the season, over the Suns. If they want to see Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O'Neal, they'd better thumb through some old 2006 Championship memorabilia -- neither have been on the floor in the two meetings between the team this season.
Houston was without Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming and the Rockets still nearly beat them. Others they have missed fortuitously include Andrei Kirilenko, Jason Richardson twice and Baron Davis once, David West, Joel Przybilla, Bonzi Wells, Charlie Villanueva, Ron Artest, Wally Szczerbiak, Brevin Knight, Hedo Turkoglu, Troy Murphy, Chris Bosh, Jerry Stackhouse, Quentin Richardson, Chauncey Billups, Kirk Hinrich, T.J. Ford, Antoine Walker, James Posey, Rashard Lewis, and Stromile Swift.
Some they will see at All-Star Weekend.
At other times, they still have the opportunity to test themselves against some of the league's best athletes who haven't been there for one reason or another the first time or two around.
"Yeah, we thought about giving some of those wins back," cajoled D'Antoni. “It just means we’re playing well, that we are taking advantage of the schedule. Or some guys that didn’t show up, we’ve had some breaks, but at the same time we are playing good basketball. We haven’t beat ourselves in a lot of games, so it will take somebody to play a great game like Dallas did to beat us or Washington did to beat us. But we’ll just go with it, we’re just really proud of the guys staying focused and doing the job they need to do. We’re a good basketball team, we just need to keep getting better"
With nearly half the season gone, the Suns are playing at a pace that will likely afford them the best record in the league. But they have to continue to improve, as D'Antoni notes ... and urges after each and every game.
"We have faced a few teams recently that have been missing their top scorers and I think it is important for us to play with a lot of intensity and not let down," says Steve Nash.
Letting down wasn't something that happened at all against the Wolves. Everybody that played, scored. And, yes, everybody played.
"You know how I like to play everyone," joked D'Antoni.
Stoudemire led the assault with 25 points and eight rebounds, while Barbosa came off the bench for 20 and Marion showed why he's an All-Star with 17 points and 20 boards, 16 on the defensive glass. Nash had 16 points and 11 assists, and Raja rang the Bell for a dozen, while Boris Diaw finished up with 10 points and seven caroms.
As far as 'the fitness club' goes, James Jones and Marcus Banks had seven apiece, fan favorite Pat Burke added six points and five rebounds, while Jumaine Jones went for five points, Jalen Rose had four and Sean Marks scored a deuce, giving the starters some much-needed rest heading to D.C. to face the team that stopped their last streak.
That's right, if it weren't for that extended stay in snowbound Denver and the hot hand of Gilbert Arenas, the Suns would be talking about winning their 30th out of 31 games. Their only losses since November 19th have come at the hands of the Wizards and Mavericks.
Despite the fact that Arenas has gone on record as saying his next 50-point game won't be until February 11th, the Suns game tomorrow night looms large as one of the best contests of the night ... the week ... maybe the month, to watch.
It's huge, no matter how some may downplay it.
“I’m just thinking about it one game at a time," says Marion wisely. "It is the first game of our road trip, that’s my biggest concern.”
You gotta love the approach.
The attitude.
The demeanor of this team.
There's not much of a swagger. Gentlemen don't do that.
But there is a confidence. And you need to play with supreme confidence, or else you'll lose again, and then losing becomes a habit.
You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them. Have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.
That's the Phoenix Suns.
Damn if they aren't an inspiration to watch.
To keep sitting on my thumbs and zipping my lips while I watch this historic era and style of play first-hand ... it's nearly unbearable to do.
Fun, but difficult.
I don't know if I am that strong.
Damn them.
Damn them all ...
NOTE
After leading the Suns to a perfect 4-0 week and a 13-game win streak, guard Steve Nash was named the NBA Western Conference Player of the Week for January 15-21, the NBA announced today. This is his seventh career NBA Player of the Week honor, second this season and sixth as a Sun for Nash, who also won the weekly award on Dec. 11, 2006, Jan. 8, 2006, Nov. 28, 2005, Feb. 14, 2005, Dec. 27, 2004, and one as a member of the Dallas Mavericks on Dec. 16, 2001.
Nash guided the team to a 4-0 record last week and averaged a league-high 13.8 assists to go along with his 15.5 points on 57.5 percent shooting. The NBA’s assist leader for the third consecutive season dished out at least 11 assists in each game and had a double-double in each game. The 11-year NBA veteran had 12 points and 15 assists in a 137-122 victory at Memphis on Jan. 15, 21 points and 14 dishes in a 100-91 win at Houston on Jan. 17, 13 points and 15 assists in a 106-101 victory vs. Portland on Jan. 19 and 16 points and 11 dimes in a 131-102 triumph vs. Minnesota on Jan. 21.
The reigning back-to-back NBA’s Most Valuable Player is averaging a career-high 19.3 points and a career-high tying 11.5 assists in 38 games played this season, and is on pace to become the first NBA player to average over 19 points and 11 assists in a single season since Magic Johnson and former Sun Kevin Johnson did it in 1989-90. Forward Shawn Marion (14.3 points, team-high 14.8 rebounds, team-high 2.25 blocks, team-high 2.00 blocks) and center Amaré Stoudemire (team-high 28.0 points, 8.8 rebounds, team-high .636 field goal percentage) were also nominees for the award.
The Pacific Division-leading Suns (32-8) will try to extend the NBA’s longest active win streak to 14 games vs. the Southeast Division-leading Washington Wizards (24-16) at 5 p.m. tomorrow at the Verizon Center. The Wizards earlier this season snapped the Suns’ franchise-record 15-game win streak with a 144-139 overtime win in Phoenix on Dec. 22. The contest will be televised locally on My45 and on NBA TV. If the Suns defeat the Wizards, they would become just the fifth team in NBA history to post two separate win streaks of 14 or more in a single season.
http://www.hoopsworld.com/article_20510.shtml
