Suns and the Grizz played the second game of their round 1 playoff series. This was very different from game 1 except for the result. Memphis pretty much did everything it wanted to (except win at the end). They slowed the game down by making it more physical. The Suns were never allowed to play at their pace. It was interesting to see how coach Fratello actually encouraged his players to foul the Suns. This stops the game, slows down the pace and disrupts the Suns flow. Interesting strategy, considering the fact that teams usually should be in trouble if they commit too many fouls. But in this case, they wanted to foul more going in. The strategy worked all right for them, though I think the whole thing is a compliment to how good the Suns are in running their free-flowing offense. There was virtually no fouls in the first quarter of game 1 and the Grizzlies felt that such a free-flowing game helped the Suns jump to a big lead.
So the Grizzlies made sure the game was slowed down. They also did a great job of involving Pau Gasol. Pau was great. He scored a bunch and also got Amare in foul trouble. I wanted the Suns to have Marion guard Gasol. Marion is their best defender and he can handle Gasol considering the fact that Marion usually draws tougher assignments. Mike D'Antoni put Marion on him late in the second quarter and Gasol had some trouble immediately. At the least, this protects Amare from foul trouble. Gasol was going to get his anyways, but Marion at least bothered him a little more than Amare. Also J-Will got off. I mean he was hitting everything. This guy is a great shooter. I never understood why coaches don't let him play and shoot like that. The only guy who could stop him on this day was coach Czar, and he did it as I had expected:. He played him only 30 mins and Earl Watson didn't do much backing him up.
The game never picked up pace in the second half. Pau was still going off, Amare had trouble with him. But Amare was awesome on offense where Memphis kept fouling him and putting him on the line. Again, the Suns had to put Marion on Pau late in the game and I thought he did a decent job. Down the stretch, the game was real close and Nash missed a couple of threes. The crowd was ready to explode on those shots, but it didn't happen. But ultimately the Suns pulled it out. As in game 1, I was really impressed with the timely plays made by Q. Q was great and he came up with the pivotal play of the game. Gasol was on the low post and he backed his way up to the basket on Marion when Q jumped up from the weak side and swatted his shot. This was a huge stop and the Suns went on to win 108-103. At the end of the day, the Suns played a tough game at playoff pace, they hit only 5 threes as opposed to 15 in game 1 and still scored 108 and won the game. So they really could not be stopped despite all the things Memphis did.
Another interesting story of the game for me as a Suns fan was, how both coach John Thompson during the game and Charles and Kenny in the studio felt that this was some kind of a scare for the Suns and how they should have blown out the Grizzlies and sent them a message. According to them, this Suns win was more of a "success" for the Grizzlies than the Suns. I thought this was a bunch of baloney. The bottom-line is that all these experts are doubters of the Suns. They don't think their style, their tempo, their personnel or anything they do makes them a real contender. And sub-consciously they try to rationalize whatever happens with the Suns from that standpoint. So in my opinion, there was nothing the Suns could have done today that would have impressed the experts beyond a certain point. They could have won by 50 points or won on a buzzer beater by Nash, they still wouldn't think the Suns are in the same class as the Pistons, Spurs or the Heat. They may be right with that opinion. I am not arguing with that assessment or the conventional wisdom about defense winning championships and all that. What I have a problem with is that, this particular game showed nothing except that the Suns can win a playoff style game even if it's close in the 4-th quarter. I think it's all positive. The expert's opinion on how this game was some kind of a bad news for the Suns is wrong and it's based on their assumption that this is all going to end bad for the Suns. Like I said, they have made up their minds and are working backwards from their assumptions and are looking for reasons to explain why and how the Suns are in trouble. That's all I am saying. It's pretty ridiculous to expect playoff games to be blowouts even if it's a 1-8 match up. It seems to be happening a lot this season with the Heat, Pistons etc. But that's Eastern Conference where the bad teams are real bad. Even then, I would say this is an exception and not the rule. Typically some playoffs series are blow-outs but individual games are almost always pretty close. I think the Suns-Memphis series fall in this category. Nothing more, nothing less.
MEMPHIS (103) AT PHOENIX (108)
MEMPHIS
REBOUNDS
PLAYER POS MIN FGM-FGA FTM-FTA OFF-DEF-TOT AST PF ST TO PTS
====== === === ======= ======= =========== === == == == ===
S BATTIER F 28 4-9 0-0 1 4 5 1 3 0 1 9
P GASOL F 39 13-26 2-6 9 7 16 5 5 1 2 28
L WRIGHT C 25 6-9 0-0 3 2 5 3 3 0 1 12
J WILLIAMS G 29 9-15 0-0 0 0 0 2 0 2 2 21
M MILLER G 19 1-5 0-0 0 3 3 0 4 0 1 3
D JONES 29 3-8 2-2 0 4 4 1 4 0 0 8
B CARDINAL 33 4-12 5-7 1 5 6 1 4 3 0 13
E WATSON 18 0-4 0-0 0 1 1 3 3 1 0 0
J POSEY 20 3-6 2-4 1 4 5 1 2 0 0 9
B WELLS DNP - COACH'S DECISION
S SWIFT DNP - COACH'S DECISION
A BURKS DNP - COACH'S DECISION
TOTALS 240 43-94 11-19 15 30 45 17 28 7 7 103
(.457) (.579) TEAM REBS: 8 TOTAL TO: 8 (6 PTS)
PHOENIX
REBOUNDS
PLAYER POS MIN FGM-FGA FTM-FTA OFF-DEF-TOT AST PF ST TO PTS
====== === === ======= ======= =========== === == == == ===
Q RICHARDSON F 35 5-9 3-4 2 3 5 0 3 0 2 15
S MARION F 39 10-18 1-2 4 9 13 2 4 1 1 22
A STOUDEMIRE C 41 8-16 18-22 2 8 10 1 4 1 2 34
S NASH G 41 5-16 2-2 1 1 2 15 3 1 4 12
J JOHNSON G 45 7-14 4-6 4 4 8 0 0 1 0 20
J JACKSON 16 0-3 0-0 0 3 3 1 0 0 0 0
L BARBOSA 7 0-0 0-0 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 0
S HUNTER 16 1-2 3-4 0 6 6 0 3 0 1 5
B OUTLAW DNP - COACH'S DECISION
W MCCARTY DNP - COACH'S DECISION
J VOSKUHL DNP - COACH'S DECISION
P SHIRLEY DNP - COACH'S DECISION
TOTALS 240 36-78 31-40 13 36 49 19 17 4 10 108
(.462) (.775) TEAM REBS: 8 TOTAL TO: 10 (12 PTS)
MEMPHIS 31 23 23 26 - 103
PHOENIX 29 31 22 26 - 108
BLOCKED SHOTS: MEMPHIS - S BATTIER, P GASOL. PHOENIX - S MARION 4,
Q RICHARDSON, J JOHNSON, S HUNTER, A STOUDEMIRE.
3-PT. FIELD GOALS: MEMPHIS 6-18 (.333), S BATTIER 1-4, J WILLIAMS 3-
5, M MILLER 1-3, D JONES 0-1, B CARDINAL 0-2, E WATSON 0-1, J POSEY 1-
2. PHOENIX 5-17 (.294), Q RICHARDSON 2-5, S MARION 1-3, S NASH 0-4,
J JOHNSON 2-4, J JACKSON 0-1.
TECHNICAL FOULS: NONE.
FLAGRANT FOULS: PHOENIX 1 (A STOUDEMIRE, 6:55 4TH).
OFFICIALS: BLANE REICHELT, EDDIE F. RUSH, JOE DEROSA.
A - 18,422. T - 2:34.
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