Golden State v. Suns 03/13/08

[young tone]

we slightly have the better end of the deal though. he's a shaq fan (just not this particular game though)

Oh man I will root for the Suns if we arent in it, fun team to watch and seeing how the Suns get screwed by the Spurs all the time, but after this game, it was so intense that if W's and Suns played in the playoffs I can see this little rivalry only get bigger....

plus I havent forgotten when Barkley went off on us in Oakland in 94

 

[goldseraph]

WHAT A GAME!!! My friend and I were jumping out of our seats several times. The suns really had SPIRIT today that they need to summon more often.
Hopefully this is a sign of things to come. Amare and Nash were awesome, and even Diaw was playing hard!
Strategically this game reinforced what I've been harping on, that the offense needs to run through Nash and Amare, not Shaq! Shaq would be better off the bench and against other big centers, but we should be running the O thru Amare in the post much more often! Every time tonight, it resulted in a bucket or a pass out to an open shooter. Granted it's GS but Amare has been on a tear and we need to make him more of a focus in the post!

 

[Chris_Sanders]

You guys crack me up. Boris had 16, 7 and 5. That's a good game.

 

[az1965]

I am really starting to think that Barkely is an idiot...

He is an idiot.

 

[Griffin]

We won this game because we shot the ball much better than the Warriors, and we played good defense in key stretches of the game. But there were a number of negatives that we can't allow:

We gave up 20 offensive rebounds.
- Warriors are not a great rebounding team. The Suns, even without Shaq and Marion, should be able to keep them off the boards. Monte Ellis is 6'3" and he finished with 5 offensive rebounds. Azubuike, 6'5", had 4.

We comitted 9 more turnovers than GS.
- That, most of the time, will cost a team the game. Diaw was the biggest culprit with 4. Fortunately, we did much better job taking care of the ball in the second half.

GS had 23 more shot attempts than Phoenix.
- This was the direct result of the turnovers and offensive rebounds yielded. Fortunately for us, we actually made more field goals than they have, including 12/24 from 3-point line, which in the end was the difference.

 

[young tone]

WHAT A GAME!!! My friend and I were jumping out of our seats several times. The suns really had SPIRIT today that they need to summon more often.
Hopefully this is a sign of things to come. Amare and Nash were awesome, and even Diaw was playing hard!
Strategically this game reinforced what I've been harping on, that the offense needs to run through Nash and Amare, not Shaq! Shaq would be better off the bench and against other big centers, but we should be running the O thru Amare in the post much more often! Every time tonight, it resulted in a bucket or a pass out to an open shooter. Granted it's GS but Amare has been on a tear and we need to make him more of a focus in the post!

Did you take any pics?

 

[Chris_Sanders]

In the first half, the officiating was awful. Usually that means the end for the Suns. This time though D'Antoni got pissed and the Suns got pissed. They jacked up the intensity and it paid off.

 

[LoyaltyisaCurse]

Another moronic statement from Barkley. As usual he downplays our win by saying that the Warriors aren't contenders (even though no team wants to face them in the playoffs). This is probably the closest and toughest western conference standings in a long time and he thinks that if you're not a top 4 seed then you have no chance? Home court helps, but Utah won't even have home court in their series. Phoenix & New Orleans have better records than Utah.

Yep...Its funny how Barkley diminishes the running teams...After the W's 0-6 start, they were 40-17 in their past 57 games. Yes, Charles, they suck...

Every team in the top-9 is a very, very good team. Period. Some are built better for a playoff run, but any team in the West can beat the other...

 

[Chris_Sanders]

Barkley thinks good basketball is isolation backdown. He is a living fossil of a dying era.

 

[cly2tw]

Nash did very good defensive work in the 2nd half. Since GS tried to isolate him at low post too much, he didn't have chance to leave the shooters open for 3s as he normally do and did in the 1st half.

Grant played too much. We should have given Giricek 5-8 more minutes. He just started finding his 3pt range and Hill was seemingly out of gas at the end of the game.

 

[az1965]

I liked it when D'Antoni took a quick timeout on Diaw's careless TO on a fast break and chewed his ass...

 

[Griffin]

Grant played too much. We should have given Giricek 5-8 more minutes. He just started finding his 3pt range and Hill was seemingly out of gas at the end of the game.

We needed Hill to rebound the ball. We were getting killed on the glass. Giricek is too small for that.

 

[jbeecham]

Hill didn't run out of gas, he was having trouble shooting because he injured his wrist when he was undercut on a rebound by Ellis and he landed hard on his side & wrist.

 

[cly2tw]

WHAT A GAME!!! My friend and I were jumping out of our seats several times. The suns really had SPIRIT today that they need to summon more often.
Hopefully this is a sign of things to come. Amare and Nash were awesome, and even Diaw was playing hard!
Strategically this game reinforced what I've been harping on, that the offense needs to run through Nash and Amare, not Shaq! Shaq would be better off the bench and against other big centers, but we should be running the O thru Amare in the post much more often! Every time tonight, it resulted in a bucket or a pass out to an open shooter. Granted it's GS but Amare has been on a tear and we need to make him more of a focus in the post!

Amare-Nash is the best against a bad defensive team such as GS. Elite teams like Spurs and Pistons know how to defend it. Also, GS is not a good fit for Shaq anyway. We always could win against GS if not for DA's pride to fight fire with fire and allow it to be a trackmeet event with them. We controlled the tempo and got GS frustrated.

 

[LavaLamp2]

I see Grant Hill as sort of a gentlemen-athlete in the way he conducts himself. If he is pissed about something, there is good reason behind it. He seldom gets a "T". That leg sweep/undercut by Monta Ellis, intentional or not, could've ended his career.

 

[FArting]

I just got back from the game. I sat in Section 202 row 6. The refs were horrible. Both Amare and Raja had good games.

 

[Bufalay]

"Only the top 4 teams in the west are contenders" Considering that 5 games separates the 1 and 8 seeds

I'm glad Kenny didn't point out the fact that his 6th seeded Rockets beat Barkley in '95 to win a championship.

 

[mojorizen7]

Watched the game at Hooters without any audio. The refs took O'Neil right out of the game and it appeared that was the agenda from the getgo.
Heady performance in the second half by cutting down on the turnovers and with Shaq sitting we got out on the break and still managed to dictate the tempo to some extent.
My game ball goes to Raja Bell for playing well on both ends of the floor tonight.
3 in a row is huge and i hope we're off and running towards a nice 7-10 game streak.

 

[JS22]

You guys crack me up. Boris had 16, 7 and 5. That's a good game.

I think it's more or less the fact that he makes terrible decisions most of the time.

 

[jbeecham]

I see Grant Hill as sort of a gentlemen-athlete in the way he conducts himself. If he is pissed about something, there is good reason behind it. He seldom gets a "T". That leg sweep/undercut by Monta Ellis, intentional or not, could've ended his career.

The refs excuse for not calling the foul was that the Suns had a fast break going and they didn't want to interrupt play (although the fast break started 2-3 seconds after the foul). So D'Antoni says to the ref that if he overlooked the foul because of the fast break then he should've overlooked the technical on Hill.

 

[LoyaltyisaCurse]

Watched the game at Hooters without any audio. The refs took O'Neil right out of the game and it appeared that was the agenda from the getgo.
Heady performance in the second half by cutting down on the turnovers and with Shaq sitting we got out on the break and still managed to dictate the tempo to some extent.
My game ball goes to Raja Bell for playing well on both ends of the floor tonight.
3 in a row is huge and i hope we're off and running towards a nice 7-10 game streak.

Maybe the Suns paid the refs to target Shaq so they could have a chance to beat the Warriors.

 

[mjb21aztd]

Glad the suns won they played a good game lets get the next win vs the kings

 

[Griffin]

A little more on officiating from Arizona Republic:

With Valley hoops fans fuming over a controversial call on Arizona State in the afternoon, they were on fire over the Suns' first half Thursday night. Mike D'Antoni, who got his first technical of the season Sunday, was hit with another. Grant Hill was undercut with no call because the Suns were on a fast break, yet his argument earned him a technical during the break. Steve Nash got one after arguing that Baron Davis barreled into him. So when official Marc Davis ran to one end of the court not knowing the Suns had the ball at the other, D'Antoni got to tell him, "Hey, we're playing at the other end."

 

[bigfoot]

I hope Grant Hill's wrist will be ok

No more injuries to Grant for the remainder of his career, please.

 

[bigfoot]

"Only the top 4 teams in the west are contenders" Considering that 5 games separates the 1 and 8 seeds

I've learned to just mute the TV at halftime of a Suns game on TNT. I've never heard Charles say anything complimentary about the Suns and I'm starting to I take it too personally. I don't even find his fave five commercials funny anymore.