This is a game lost by the coach.
At the halftime, they showed a stats: Suns +15 with Nash on the bench! And late 3rd q, with Nash on the bench, we were great defensively with JimJ replacing him. The only weapon of the Sonics, pick/screen and role, didn't work that well as all of our players are interchangible. Despite them making unbelievable tough shots. Nash is back, defense can't hold against the efficient and tough Sonics' offense. And they kind of figured out how to defend in transition against Suns fastbreak, with 3-4 steals of our long passes.
McMillan should win the COY. They are a methodically sound team as Sloan's with Malone-Stockton in their primes. The Suns is the best athletic team in the league and thus can sweep those week teams that are way too inferior in talent. But athletism loses to methodism, unless you are MJ.
Sonics players are good at acting, grabbing, pushing, setting moving picks without being called, which was greatly aided by the naive plays of ours who didn't know how to exaggerate a bit to make those fouls visible to the refs and force them to call them. Malone and Stockton were masters at it.
Apropos Malone-Stockton, in comparison to Stockton, Nash dominates the ball way too much. Stockton used to run a lot through screens, setting picks without the ball. His talent was great enough that he also would have been able to play the way Nash is, in halfcourt game. Why? Because you needed to elicit as much as possible from the other talent you have on your team. During the process of a game, you figure out how others are performing and then ride your hot hands. The supporting acts then were far less talented than the Suns now. In other words, the Suns are underutilizing their talent as a team. JimJ didn't have a chance to show whether he got a hot hand or he'd succeed in posting smaller guys like Allen and Daniels. JoeJ sucked and showed his weakness, softness. But Q and JimJ were both players capable of attacking the basket the way Allen, Daniels did. They didn't get a chance to even to try.
Against the good teams Spurs, Sonics, Mems, or even Kings, the winning formula against the weak team "Nash and run" is less likely to work so as to win the game with this single weapon/strategy. The talent difference is not that big that they, the better teams, wouldn't be able to adapt to it and find a way to beat it. For us to have a chance this year in the playoffs, we need to uncover additional virtues in this team. For example, with a more defensive minded lineup of Amare/Marion/JJ/JJ/Q alone we might be able to win some games by stopping the opponent's offense and take advantage of the inevitable postup advantages this lineup will give us against ANY team. At least, we must be well prepared for the situations like last night when we just weren't able to OUTSCORE the opponents, (last night, we weren't hitting our jumpers while Sonics were) and have plans to fall back on in those situations.
I think if now McMillan takes over as the Suns headcoach, he'd be able to make the most use of the full potential in this incredible collection of talents and win the championship without "ifs and buts". But with DA, it more depends on our luck, like hoping Sonics would miss some shots like they did in their loss to us etc.
