Suns are still doing well. Their record is 39-11 and are 2 games behind the Mavs. They have lost 3 of the last 6 since their 17 game winning streak. One of those losses was the last game of a long road trip at Minnesota with KG scoring 40+. The other loss was yesterday without Nash against our archenemy Joe Johnson and the Atlanta Hawks. They also won at Denver when Nash left the game early and beat Portland in OT on the road without Nash. They beat Spurs in this 6 game stretch in a close one where the Spurs looked every bit the contender they have been the last few years. That was a good win for the Suns.
The one bad loss was against the Jazz at home. This was shocking to see the Jazz kind of dominate the Suns at home! The Suns probably wanted to win this game badly since they have already lost twice to the Jazz. Now it's 0-3. Mehmet Okur looked like a freaking cross between Wilt Chamberlain and Steve Kerr! He absolutely dominated the inside and as always nailed those 3's and other perimeter shots. The Jazz are a big team and the Suns were over-matched size-wise as always. And all this without Boozer! AK-47, Boozer and Okur may be the best front-line we have seen in a long time. There's not a single thing these 3 guys combined can't do. They are big, talented, athletic and versatile. And Deron Williams is one of the better PGs in this league and sky is the limit for the Jazz if Deron keeps improving. The Suns still came back and made a game out of it and they might have even won it if Marion and Barbosa were not in foul trouble. With all that said, the discouraging part was how easily the Jazz scored throughout this game and how much trouble the Suns had defending them. The Suns have not shown us yet that they can handle the Jazz in a 7 game playoff series.
The good news for the the Suns is that Amare Stoudemire is having a great stretch right now. He is truly STAT right now - standing tall and talented. He had 28 against the Jazz, 36 against Denver, 36 against the Blazers and 29 against the Hawks. He has taken even more of a scoring load with Nash out. By the way, his field goal percentage is still a whopping 60%. The only issue for the Suns here could be that Marion I think is kind of losing his touches to Amare. His numbers are down the last couple of games. Hopefully he doesn't sulk and go into the tank. He even made it to the "HOT-NOT" list for NBA fantasy players on the "NOT" side! His FG% is down as well which means he is still getting some shots, just not converting enough of them. Hopefully he turns it around and becomes the MATRIX we know again. After all, he will be at the all-star game for the Suns along with Nash and Amare for a reason and he sure can get back to that all-star level soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment