San Antonio @ Phoenix - Game Thread - Sun. May 6, 2007 - 12:30 p.m. ABC

[mribnik]

Keep Bell on Manu and have whoever is guarding Parker go over the screen. If Parker goes to the basket you send his ass to the floor. That's how you beat the Spurs. The Lakers made this adjustment a few years ago and totally took Parker off his game. I don't think the Suns can beat the Spurs if they refuse to play somewhat physical. The officials simply cannot call a foul every time even if it is a foul every time. The Jazz and Spurs have taken advantage of that for years.

 

[Cheesebeef]

thank god the next game is only a day away. We don't have to wait forever to see if this is going to be a series or not. And if we win, then everything changes with 4 days off before the real showdown begins.

damnit. just damnit.

 

[CaptainInsano]

If we lose this series we are basically going to have to trade marion. He is a heck of a player but we just cannot afford to sink 15 million into a player that will always disappear against our true nemesis the spurs because he has no 10-15ft game whatsoever.

Amare in 38 min can get 20 points and 18 rebounds and shawn in 42 gets torched by parker and gets 16 and 6?

That just can't happen for 15 million, shawn is fun to watch when he gets oops and easy baskets, but against good teams like the spurs he is negated.

 

[Treesquid PhD]

And let Nash get killed running through all the screens they set for Finley?

Yes, basically nothing is perfect, but Finley doesn't have the offense run through him, so I am not to worried about Nash taking a massive beating.

I'd let Finley beat us before Parker and Duncan get 60 pts again.

 

[Cheesebeef]

If we lose this series we are basically going to have to trade marion. He is a heck of a player but we just cannot afford to sink 15 million into a player that will always disappear against our true nemesis the spurs because he has no 10-15ft game whatsoever.

Amare in 38 min can get 20 points and 18 rebounds and shawn in 42 gets torched by parker and gets 16 and 6?

That just can't happen for 15 million, shawn is fun to watch when he gets oops and easy baskets, but against good teams like the spurs he is negated.

by the way, Flloyd Merriweather Sr. is a crack head.

 

[CaptainInsano]

by the way, Flloyd Merriweather Sr. is a crack head.

I just honestly believed that marion would step up his game or at least do decent for freakin' once against the spurs especially with amare in there drawing all the contact. I was wrong about marion, again.

 

[Chaplin]

If we lose this series we are basically going to have to trade marion. He is a heck of a player but we just cannot afford to sink 15 million into a player that will always disappear against our true nemesis the spurs because he has no 10-15ft game whatsoever.

Amare in 38 min can get 20 points and 18 rebounds and shawn in 42 gets torched by parker and gets 16 and 6?

That just can't happen for 15 million, shawn is fun to watch when he gets oops and easy baskets, but against good teams like the spurs he is negated.

If we're going to trade anyone, trade KT. I love him, but if we're not going to use him, then why pay all that money for him?

 

[Cheesebeef]

and let me just say again, it's such a shame Nash was gone for the last two minutes. That was a heavyweight title fight that basically got ended by Richard Steele when both teams were throwing haymakers at eachother in the 15th. Damn. Damn.

DB

 

[Cheesebeef]

If we're going to trade anyone, trade KT. I love him, but if we're not going to use him, then why pay all that money for him?

i won't even touch this. we're might have all summer to talk about trading shawn. no need to start now.

but I agree with the above also. Not playing KT is the height of stupidity against the Spurs. 12 minutes?! 12 minutes?

 

[CaptainInsano]

If we're going to trade anyone, trade KT. I love him, but if we're not going to use him, then why pay all that money for him?

8 million wouldn't get us out of the hole enough for next year, we will probably be at 80 million next season, if we took 15 million off the books (when the lux will probably be 70-72 million) that gives us a lot of room to try to do something drastic.

KG would completely barrel us over the top against these spurs, his 15 footer, solid rebounds against tough teams (unlike marion) and demand for double teams would seal the deal.

*edit: Anyway I will stop talking about the offseason now though, hopefully we can come out strong and take game 2 and 4!!!

 

[az1965]

If we lose this series, it will be primarily because of D'Antoni. He is just not a good coach. Nash has carried this team and has made him look good. And he is even lousier GM.

KT playing just 12 min is garbage when he was doing a really good job on Duncan. KT should be starting and guarding Duncan. Amare should be on Elson. Shawn on Finley. Bell on Parker.

 

[Cheesebeef]

I just honestly believed that marion would step up his game or at least do decent for freakin' once against the spurs especially with amare in there drawing all the contact.

why? he NEVER steps up against them. The Spurs are his cryptonite, regular season or playoffs.

 

[Cheesebeef]

come on guys - we'll have plenty of time to talk about Marion trades in a little while - let's not muddy up the rest of the playoffs with that talk.

 

[JS22]

If we lose this series, it will be primarily because of D'Antoni. He is just not a good coach. Nash has carried this team and has made him look good. And he is even lousier GM.

KT playing just 12 min is garbage when he was doing a really good job on Duncan. KT should be starting and guarding Duncan. Amare should be on Elson. Shawn on Finley. Bell on Parker.

Agree 100%. KT was the only one making Duncan actually work. KT was signed for THIS SERIES ALONE. Yet, he gets 12 min?

And when I saw Marion guarding Duncan at the start of the third I almost threw my TV out the window.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Agree 100%. KT was the only one making Duncan actually work. KT was signed for THIS SERIES ALONE. Yet, he gets 12 min?

And when I saw Marion guarding Duncan at the start of the third I almost threw my TV out the window.

believe me, you weren't alone.

 

[CaptainInsano]

why? he NEVER steps up against them. The Spurs are his cryptonite, regular season or playoffs.

I just believed this team was different in our makeup enough from the 2005 and 2006 seasons that he would be focused on less and thus be allowed to grab more boards and put in more points.

With barbosa out there zipping around and amare back getting double teamed I figured marion would be open to do a lot more, but yet he has somehow found a way yet AGAIN to shrink away from the spurs.

 

[Treesquid PhD]

Barbosa was just awful in the second half, I know he is the one guy no one will rip right now but I am pretty sure he shot about 1-7 in crucial points.

Amare was about 50/50 but missed big shots too.

On the other hand SA just hit their shots.

 

[CaptainInsano]

Barbosa was just awful in the second half, I know he is the one guy no one will rip right now but I am pretty sure he shot about 1-7 in crucial points.

Amare was about 50/50 but missed big shots too.

On the other hand SA just hit their shots.

Quite a few somewhat easy layups that this team lost, SA did their share of stopping most layups but a few should have definately gone in and didn't. Suns can't afford to be sloppy like that!

 

[Cheesebeef]

Barbosa was just awful in the second half, I know he is the one guy no one will rip right now but I am pretty sure he shot about 1-7 in crucial points.

Amare was about 50/50 but missed big shots too.

On the other hand SA just hit their shots.

bottom line, when SA needs to string together MULTIPLE stops at the end of a game they can and we can't.

 

[elindholm]

The biggest difference to me is how we played Tony Parker on defense in the first half (that and Shawn Marion sucking it up through the first 24 minutes).

We consistently went under every screen that Tim Duncan set, leaving Parker open--and that's who killed us in this game. In the 2nd half, we started going over the screen and surprise, surprise--Parker didn't have as easy a time.

There were some bad calls, but nothing really unusual. KT was great in the 1st half, but barely registered any time in the 2nd--that has to change. And I think the James Jones experiment should be over, IMO. As much as everybody really doesn't like Boris, we gotta have him in the starting lineup over Jones. Again, he was aggressive in the first half and barely saw the floor in the 2nd. It's like Frank Johnson's substitution patterns all over again.

With that said, however, I think the game proved that this series is anybody's series. I know a lot of people will probably write the Suns off because we lost Game 1, but this was as see-saw a game as you can get. We can beat the Spurs, it just requires a bit of adjustments, which hopefully D'Antoni isn't afraid to do. We'll see Tuesday.

Mainly good points. I'll even applaud the last one, even though in my heart I don't agree with it. My one objection is the plug for Diaw -- he did have a couple of good moments, but he's just too careless with the ball, and in the second half he was a turnover waiting to happen.

For some reason, the league-wide reputation on Parker is that he can't shoot. It just shows how poor people are at coming to their own conclusions. He doesn't make 50+% of his FGA the last two seasons just driving for layups. Of course he can shoot. Evidently the game plan was to let him bomb away from 18 feet all day, and it was a complete disaster.

Do the Suns EVER win a big Game 1 at home? It seems like, every time they find themselves with HCA in a big series, they gack it up at the earliest possible moment.

 

[az1965]

Few of those layups we should have gone hard with and stuffed them. They also made us a jump shooting team forcing us to take low % shots. Did Amare or Shawn had even one dunk today?

 

[Cheesebeef]

Do the Suns EVER win a big Game 1 at home? It seems like, every time they find themselves with HCA in a big series, they gack it up at the earliest possible moment.

1993 NBA Finals - Lost first two home game
2005 Conference Finals - Lost first two home games
2006 Conference Finals - Lost first home game
2007 Semis (and basically the WCF) - Lost first home game

it's sickening. REALLY sickening. I can't think of another team that historically is as good as us and continually pisses away Home-court advantage in their first home game like we have.

do you realize that we've lost our last 6 of 7 home games against SA and Dallas in the playoffs the last three years? 1-6!? That's just horrendous.

 

[Scot1]

I'm not giving up hope. In the 3rd SA was hotter than I've seen any team in a long time--they hit everything, especially Parker. [We did some dumb things guarding him, but he was driving by whoever guarded him about as easily as Nash did.] Yet we were down 8 at most--I really thought SA was going to just pull away then. And we came back, without a long run. With 2 or 3 minutes left we were tied or had the lead. We were really unlucky with Nash's nose, and yet still almost pulled it out.

I agree that KT should be in there more, and that Barbosa is not one of your high-cognition players. But I think we could very possibly take 4 of 6 without really major adjustments.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Few of those layups we should have gone hard with and stuffed them. They also made us a jump shooting team forcing us to take low % shots. Did Amare or Shawn had even one dunk today?

nope - i don't remember one dunk at all.

 

[elindholm]

Shifting the defensive assignments to start the third quarter was a panic move by D'Antoni. Yes, Stoudemire had three fouls, but he had played something like 16 minutes in the first half picking up only one. Then the second was borderline (although a good call, I thought) and the third was absurd, but the point is, he was holding his own defensively.

Letting Duncan have his way against Marion and Diaw was basically a concession. Much better to start Stoudemire on Duncan again and see what he can do. Especially since the officials must have known that they blew the third foul call, there's a decent chance that they would have given Stoudemire a bit more leeway.