Another game, another impressive victory for the Suns. They crushed the Grizzlies 123-115 in game 4 to earn a first round sweep. Now they can rest for a while and await the winner of the Rockets-Mavs series. Either way, their second round series will be brutal. Hopefully they can pull it off. Suns played real well in game 4. They started off hot and dropped 40+ in the first quarter. They quickly built a 21 point lead, but as always, relaxed a little bit and with Nash on the bench the Grizz narrowed down the gap. I was very impressed with the fight in the Grizzlies. They didn’t give up and they fought all the way back to tie it up in the third quarter. As always Pau Gasol, Mike Miller and Jason Williams were all on fire, but the Suns were even better on this day. When the game was tied, the Suns took off on another run and pushed it back to a double digit lead. They never let Memphis close in after that and they just wrapped the game up in the fourth quarter.
The Suns looked very good scoring 125 points. When they are hitting threes, they are virtually unstoppable. And they usually do hit their threes because, for one, they have good shooters in Joe J, Jim J, Nash and Q and secondly, their threes are wide open because of a fast-break or penetration and dish by Nash. Memphis tried to slow the game down in game 2 and they couldn’t stop Amare and it appeared like they tried to play up-tempo in game 4 and that’s a game you don’t want to play against the Suns. You can’t outscore the Suns playing their game. It’ll be tempting and it’ll even work for a while, but over
the course of an entire game, you can’t run and gun like the Suns. Amare had some good dunks as always and Marion was fouled hard again, but this time by Dahntay Jones (the rookie from Duke). Mike Fratello had asked Bonzi Wells to stay home and Jayson Williams had a minor incident with a Memphis reporter after the game. Aside from all these minor events, this was an easy win for the Suns.
I might have finally found out why the Coaches don’t play Jayson Williams for long in spite of his terrific shooting. Too many mistakes, bad decisions and poor shot selection in addition to bad defense makes Earl Watson an attractive alternative to J-Will. Not sure what’s going to happen to him long-term. Another thing I learnt was from D’Antoni’s post game comments when he talked about the huge free throw discrepancy. He says that the Suns go out of the way to make sure they don’t foul too often. It seems Amare gets in foul trouble now and then mostly because of his own aggressiveness, but strategically, the Suns apparently don’t want to foul. This makes perfect sense. Coaches like the Czar want to foul and stop the game against the Suns. So it’s in the best interest of the Suns to keep the game flowing and run up and down. D’Antoni was saying that given this difference in approaches to the game, the Suns always shoot more free throws than their opponent and it’s no big deal. This might also explain some of their weak defense (for better or for worse!).
Name Min FG 3Pt FT Off Reb Ast TO Stl Blk PF Pts
Q. Richardson 39 4-7 2-4 4-6 1 5 3 1 2 0 3 14
S. Marion 43 10-13 0-3 3-5 2 11 4 2 3 3 1 23
A. Stoudemire 40 5-10 0-0 8-12 0 7 3 4 1 5 5 18
S. Nash 37 6-10 4-6 8-10 1 4 9 7 0 0 1 24
J. Johnson 41 7-12 2-3 9-11 0 4 4 3 0 0 3 25
J. Jackson 23 6-10 3-7 4-5 0 3 2 1 0 0 3 19
S. Hunter 13 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 2 0 0 0 2 1 0
L. Barbosa 4 0-1 0-1 0-0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
W. McCarty DNP - Coach's Decision
B. Outlaw DNP - Coach's Decision
P. Shirley DNP - Coach's Decision
J. Voskuhl DNP - Coach's Decision
Totals 240 38-63 11-24 36-49 5 37 26 19 6 10 17 123
Percentages: .603 .458 .735 Team Rebounds: 13
Name Min FG 3Pt FT Off Reb Ast TO Stl Blk PF Pts
S. Battier 30 1-7 0-2 0-0 2 5 3 1 2 0 5 2
P. Gasol 36 12-23 1-1 3-3 2 4 2 1 1 0 4 28
L. Wright 10 1-3 0-0 0-0 0 0 1 0 0 0 4 2
J. Williams 29 8-15 4-6 0-0 1 2 8 3 1 0 2 20
M. Miller 26 5-10 1-3 2-2 0 2 5 1 0 0 1 13
B. Cardinal 6 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 0
J. Posey 28 3-6 3-6 3-4 0 3 2 1 2 1 5 12
E. Watson 19 4-6 1-2 2-2 2 3 5 1 1 1 3 11
D. Jones 34 5-10 3-4 1-2 2 5 0 2 1 0 4 14
S. Swift 22 6-9 0-0 1-3 1 3 0 1 1 0 2 13
A. Burks DNP - Coach's Decision
B. Wells DNP - Coach's Decision
Totals 240 45-89 13-24 12-16 10 28 26 11 9 2 32 115
Percentages: .506 .542 .750 Team Rebounds: 8
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