Houston @ Phoenix game thread

[mribnik]

I'm willing to let Marion off the hook for those 3's because he played awesome defense all night. Him and KT really anchored this team defensively tonight.

 

[Cheesebeef]

This guy needs to drive more to the hoop - that's for sure, and he has the ability but not the desire alot of times.

You can't drive towards the hoop if you can't dribble very well, and Shawn can't... at least not to the point of being good enough to take his man off the dribble.

 

[Treesquid PhD]

how is it that our best low-post threat and only guy who gets to the FT line only gets 11 shots in this game?

nice win though - big lead, then no lead, then big lead. I don't know how some of you guys watch this team every night. Every time I think about getting the NBA Package it's games liek this that make me realize I don't need to be at a boiling point every night.

I still don't understand why Shawn Marion shoots 5 3s a game.

Amare was looking to pass quite a bit tonight from the parts I saw.

What did he finish with? 20 and 15?

I agree Marion seems to be throwing up alot of threes for someone that shoots right around 30%. That's not where his value is, maybe Marion is the odd man out with Boris and Amare???

 

[Nash]

marion needs to slash more. thats where his chances lie. where the hell did the Boris to Marion lob play go this year?

 

[az1965]

I agree Marion seems to be throwing up alot of threes for someone that shoots right around 30%. That's not where his value is, maybe Marion is the odd man out with Boris and Amare???

Boris needs to take his head out of his *** before he can be considered a Marion replacement. With the exception of couple of games, he is so far having a crappy season. And irritates the heck out of me when he overpasses instead of taking open shots.

 

[fordronken]

If Marion doesn't shoot open threes, it hurts the overall offense. Now, he does settle for threes, and that needs to stop. He also looks for them too much, which should also stop. But if he has the ball out there, he should shoot it. Look how much more the defense sags back when Banks in in the game. Knowing a player in this system won't shoot from where they're standing hurts this offense tremendously.

 

[fordronken]

Oh, and another thing. The Suns won the game, holding the Rockets under a hundred points, all on a night where Nash, Marion, Thomas and Diaw shot a combined 12 for 40.

 

[The_Matrix]

Marion shoots threes in order to maintain his status as #1 fantasy stud. His FG% will remain above .500 even with 30% three-point shooting, so people like me who draft him first in every league can rejoice.

 

[CaptainInsano]

As bad as banks has been it is not just him, diaw is so on and off transparent it is getting ridiculous.

If banks could distribute just a little, hit more then .100% of threes (somewhere around .320 would be nice), and not make so many stupid mistakes he would be worth something.

And if the man known as Boris freakin Diaw would wakeup from wherever his mind goes off too every other game that would really help also.

It is good the suns won but I think we should have scored around 108-110 this game.

 

[elindholm]

(Marion) needs to drive more to the hoop - that's for sure, and he has the ability but not the desire alot of times.

What's the point? Even when he gets close to the hoop he usually misses, unless it's a fast break or a wide open dunk. All of his weird little running shots in the paint today were bricks.

He did do a great job on defense, however.

 

[mjb21aztd]

I only got to see the first half because I had to go out hate to see that we again almost blew this game but it was good to see Amare have a good game rebounding and scoring, it was also good to see Raja bell come up pretty big again good win by the suns tonight hopefully we can get the bucks on friday should be another good game to watch

 

[cly2tw]

Thomas was absolutely huge! Barbosa saved us in the 4th. Rose will be effective once he has his conditioning up to bar. He appeared so slow yet effective scoring, proof of his veteran smartness.

Marion seems to be too much concerned about his scoring. Particularly in the 2nd half, he had brick after brick. In one play, Amare was wide open close to the basket after p&r with Marion, yet with 2 defenders following him into the paint Marion bricked another floater instead passing to Amare for a dunk. Compared to the 1st half when Marion passed well even to Amare, the only explanation is that he wanted to score himself too much. At least his defense is very good in this game.

Amare seems to have the calm composure to let the game come to him. We should have posted him up a bit more theoretically, but I guess coach didn't want to burden him with too much too soon. His effort level has been quite balanced throughout the game.

 

[JCSunsfan]

Thomas was absolutely huge! Barbosa saved us in the 4th! Rose will be effective once he has his conditioning up to bar. He appeared so slow yet effective scoring, proof of his veteran smartness.

 

[Louis]

"It says something about your team to give up a lead and be able to come back and win the game," Bell said.

The Suns were 1-for-10 with six turnovers to that point in the quarter. "We just went dead offensively in the third quarter," Phoenix coach Mike D'Antoni said. "For whatever reason, we just have that habit of losing our concentration a little bit and we went dead. If we score a normal third quarter of 25 points, we beat them by 20. That's what the game should have been, but it's not bad to suffer a little."

I'm hoping something else was said in the locker room.

They almost seem pleased that another large lead was blown during a game.

Don't all of the Suns' losses share a common theme of blown leads and suffering a little?

 

[Louis]

Though good job by the Suns on dominating the boards against the 7th best team in the NBA in total rebounding.

 

[msdundee]

As bad as banks has been it is not just him, diaw is so on and off transparent it is getting ridiculous.

If banks could distribute just a little, hit more then .100% of threes (somewhere around .320 would be nice), and not make so many stupid mistakes he would be worth something.

And if the man known as Boris freakin Diaw would wakeup from wherever his mind goes off too every other game that would really help also.

It is good the suns won but I think we should have scored around 108-110 this game.

While watching that pathetic third Q, biting my nails and clenching my teeth (hard to do simultaneously), a thought crossed my mind: I was really glad Banks wasn't in the game or he would have taken all the flak for what was going on. Nobody could hit anything and that was with Steve on the floor, hard to figure but it happens.

 

[jbeecham]

Suns Defuse Rockets

By Jerry Brown
East Valley Tribune
Nov. 29, 2006


Until the Suns can figure out a way to stop their in-game implosions altogether, they stumbled upon a decent compromise Wednesday. Instead of giving back their big lead in the fourth quarter — as has been the script early this season — the Suns coughed up their 22-point second-quarter lead to Houston during a miserable third quarter that saw Phoenix miss 9-of-10 shots and commit six turnovers in the first seven minutes.

But that gave the Suns the entire fourth quarter to regroup and ultimately dispose of the Rockets 102-91 at US Airways Center, giving them their fifth straight win and a 7-1 rally from their 1-5 start.

Houston took only its second lead of the game on a Tracy McGrady jumper with 9:23 left to play. That was ironic since McGrady missed 17 of his first 23 shots from the field and often did more harm than good to their cause.

But Steve Nash, in the midst of a miserable shooting game himself (missing 9 of his first 11 shots), stroked a 3-pointer to put the Suns back in front and followed with a 22-footer 33 seconds later to kick-start a 19-5 Suns run that put the game away.

The Suns, who outrebounded Houston 55-36 and had three players — Amaré Stoudemire, Shawn Marion and Kurt Thomas — with at least 11 boards — have now beaten the Rockets four straight times and in nine of the last 11 meetings. But it didn’t come without some of the usual Phoenix drama.

“We showed some signs of how good we can be and signs of how bad we can be,” Phoenix coach Mike D’Antoni said. “The first quarter was really good and the third quarter was really bad. But at least it had a happy ending.”

The Suns did a good job keeping Yao Ming under control (18 points in 28 foul-plagued minutes) and forced the Rockets to hoist 38 3-pointers. They hit only 10 until McGrady finally connected on three meaningless bombs in the final 90 seconds — by then, Phoenix had dodged the bullet and was well out of danger.

“(The third quarter was) just a lack of a sense of urgency,” said guard Raja Bell, who overcame a flu bug and dehydration — which required a hospital visit Monday for IV fluids — to hit four more 3-pointers and score 20 points. “I know I’m beating a dead horse, but we have to find a way to not have those letdowns when we have leads like that.”

Stoudemire had a strong game with 22 points, 15 rebounds and eight of Phoenix’s 28 made free throws. He and Thomas did a nice job inside, while Leandro Barbosa contributed 14 points, five rebounds and six assists after missing two games with an ankle sprain. That helped make up for another invisible evening from Boris Diaw (three missed shots, one point and four turnovers in 24 minutes) and poor shooting nights from Nash and Shawn Marion (5-for-16).

“I just didn’t feel like we had it tonight,” Nash said. “In some ways, I was kind of proud of us for sticking with it because we didn’t have a good rhythm. It was a good sign that we didn’t have our ‘A’ game and fought through it.”

CHA-CHING

The Suns are 8-for-8 when it comes to sellouts at US Airways Center, the team’s longest streak to open a season since selling every seat all year in 1997-98. Suns president Rick Welts said no games are sold out moving forward — the Suns purposely hold back some single-game tickets to sell — but said there is a chance the streak will continue all year.

“We’re not there yet. But if we get to Christmas (with all the games sold out) I’ll be optimistic we can run the table,” Welts said.

WHAT BENCH?

With six players on the All-Star ballot (Barbosa, Bell, Diaw, Marion, Nash and Stoudemire) and center Thomas also capable of big games with long minutes, it’s getting harder and harder for D’Antoni to find minutes for the rest of his reserves.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that those beyond the top seven — from Marcus Banks to James Jones to Jalen Rose — have struggled. And it adds up to plenty of reasons to shorten this bench.

“Leandro was our leading scorer and Kurt might have been our best player the first 10 games. They are starters on anyone’s team,’’ he said. “I like a long bench, but I don’t know how, mathematically, you can get them all in there.”

BONUS SHOTS

Stoudemire now has six double-doubles in the 10 games he’s started this season. . . . Bell is 24-for-43 (55.8 percent) from 3-point range in the last five games, hitting at least four in each game.

http://www.nba.com/suns/news/tribune_061130.html

 

[jbeecham]

The Suns (8-6) can possibly move into a tie for 1st place in the division standings with a win against Milwaukee tomorrow. The Lakers (9-5) play Utah tonight (which LA should lose) and then the Clippers on Saturday. The Kings (8-5) have to play @ Dallas Friday then @ SA Saturday. GS is 9-7 and already behind us in the standings, but they play Milwaukee Saturday and then have games against @SA & @Houston.

 

[Amare32]

Be good to take the lead early but It won't be long until we grab It for good soon enough.

 

[Louis]

This is better...

"It should be a concern," Stoudemire said after practice Thursday at US Airways Center, where the Suns squandered a 22-point lead Wednesday night against Houston but rallied for a 102-91 victory, their fifth straight. "To win a championship we can't give up 20-point leads. We need to do a better job of protecting those leads. We need to play the clock, we need to play the right tempo and we need to play the scoreboard."

 

[Folster]

Originally Posted by Amare
"It should be a concern," Stoudemire said after practice Thursday at US Airways Center, where the Suns squandered a 22-point lead Wednesday night against Houston but rallied for a 102-91 victory, their fifth straight. "To win a championship we can't give up 20-point leads. We need to do a better job of protecting those leads. We need to play the clock, we need to play the right tempo and we need to play the scoreboard."


translation: Give me the ball.

 

[Louis]

translation: Give me the ball.

Exactly. That's what they should be doing.

Amare can get to the line, score, and is a good passer.

*Note*

Amare isn't a good passer if the Matrix is the other guy. And vice versa.

 

[SactownSunsFan]

Amare is shooting over 65% since the Spurs game, and is great at drawing fouls and getting to the line. I think getting him the ball more in crunch time would be a good thing.