Grizzlies @ Suns

[Andrew]

The Phoenix Suns may soon be in rebuilding mode. The Memphis Grizzlies know what that is like.
The Suns begin their final homestand of the season Monday night when they meet the Grizzlies in a matchup of teams headed to the draft lottery.

It's not a surprise that Memphis (23-57), which starts three rookies, won't be headed to the playoffs. But not many in the NBA expected the same for Phoenix (44-36).

The Suns will miss the postseason for the first time since 2003-04 after this difficult season concludes. This campaign saw Phoenix continue to reshape its roster by trading popular players Raja Bell and Boris Diaw, star forward Amare Stoudemire suffer a season-ending eye injury and general manager Steve Kerr fire coach Terry Porter on Feb. 16.

Phoenix is still trying to figure out where things unraveled.

"It's difficult to swallow, knowing how talented this team is and how many great players we have on this team," guard Jason Richardson said. "Hopefully we can gather the same group of guys back next year and try to make a run when we're healthy, but it's very frustrating to know that we're going home in a couple days."

With nothing to play for, coach Alvin Gentry has opted to rest his veterans and give his younger players some more action -- a plan he intends to follow for the final two games. The Suns used rookies Goran Dragic and Robin Lopez extensively in a 110-97 win at Minnesota on Saturday.

Dragic had eight points on 3-of-11 shooting and eight assists in 26 minutes. Lopez also logged 26 minutes and finished with six points and 11 rebounds.

"I'm happy with Goran," Gentry said. "He didn't shoot the ball well tonight, but he had eight assists. I thought Robin did a good job controlling the paint and protecting the basket for us. It's just unfortunate for him that he doesn't have a lot of minutes this year."

Suns veterans Steve Nash, Shaquille O'Neal and Richardson all started, but played less than 19 minutes.

Memphis will play its final road game as it nears the end of its third straight season out of the playoffs. The Grizzlies have used young players all season, and the most impressive has been high-scoring guard O.J. Mayo.

Mayo, the third overall selection in last year's draft, leads all rookies with an 18.4 scoring average. He and Rudy Gay each scored 20 points last Friday in a 106-89 win over the Suns, who had won the first two meetings with Memphis this season.

Memphis finished with its third-lowest point total of the season in a 92-75 loss at the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday. Mayo scored a team-high 20.

The Grizzlies have lost five straight at Phoenix.

While this game is meaningless, I have to attend a student government meeting for an article I am writing on an hour before the game, so who knows how much of this game I will miss....

 

[YouJustGotSUNSD]

You're in my prayers Andrew. Get home quickly. I'm rooting for you!

 

[Andrew]

I actually didn't attend the meeting tonight because its 2 weeks before the article is due and I was assured next week is the last meeting and it will be chalk full of material I can cover. So I will get it done about a week before its due, no harm done. It lets me focus on the issue at hand, rather than think about basketball, and yes I know the games are meaningless, but they are still on...

 

[Billy Bob]

You're in my prayers Andrew. Get home quickly. I'm rooting for you!

 

[binkar]

You're in my prayers Andrew. Get home quickly. I'm rooting for you!

LOL!!! haha.

 

[cly2tw]

haha, Hill was cheating!

 

[Andrew]

My stupid room mate put on family guy REALLY loud and it drowned out the sound of my stream, but what I saw was impressive nonetheless, a crazy shot by Lopez quickly followed by a block.

 

[cly2tw]

wow, Lopez is quite athletic. He got beat by Gasol already but covered back to clean block that shot. And that reverse on Nash catch was way unexpected from a 7 footer like him. His rotation on defending PnR was quite good too, getting beat only once in 4-5 tries. Great signs of life!

 

[Andrew]

Lopez is looking decent

 

[cly2tw]

Dragic is so good at drawing fouls often out of bad situations for him. Really smart guy

 

[Andrew]

I know y'all are tired of my streaming issues, but this guy on justin.tv sucks....he is filming it off his tv because the other stream died because of copyright issues.

 

[FArting]

Whats the score of the game? Just got back from Vegas.

 

[Proteus]

Suns up 59-57 after the 2nd quarter. Grizzlies shooting 52% with 3/8 3 pointers. It'd be nice if we could win this game and the game against the Warriors.

 

[Brianellsworth]

My stupid room mate put on family guy REALLY loud and it drowned out the sound of my stream, but what I saw was impressive nonetheless, a crazy shot by Lopez quickly followed by a block.

I know y'all are tired of my streaming issues, but this guy on justin.tv sucks....he is filming it off his tv because the other stream died because of copyright issues.

You just could't go a whole game wihtout posting about your stream huh Andrew.

 

[Proteus]

Suns up 86-84 after the 3rd quarter. Grizzlies shooting 52% with 4/11 3 pointers. Come on guys...don't lose to the Grizzlies twice in a row.

 

[Proteus]

Suns up 95-94 with 8:18 left in the 4th quarter. They were up 95-86 with 10:30 left in the 4th quarter. They were up 84-76 with 2:56 left in the 3rd quarter when Nash to rest.

 

[Proteus]

Suns up 97-94 with 7:00 left in the 4th quarter as Nash, Shaq, Hill, Barnes, and Richardson return.

 

[Proteus]

Suns up 107-102 with 4:08 left in the 4th quarter.

 

[Proteus]

Suns up 109-105 with 2:34 left in the 4th quarter.Come on guys...close this game out.

 

[Proteus]

Suns up 111-105 with 1:41 left in the 4th quarter.

 

[Andrew]

J Rich with a 3, good to see they are going all out to end the season on as high of a note as they possibly can in this situation

 

[Proteus]

Suns up 114-107 with 1:09 left in the 4th quarter after a JRich 3.

 

[Proteus]

Suns up 116-107 with 41.6 seconds left in the 4th quarter.

 

[Proteus]

Suns up 117-108 with 29.3 seconds left in the 4th quarter.

 

[Proteus]

Nice win. Hopefully we can win on wednesday as well and end the season on a positive note.