Suns won game 1 against the Lakers yesterday after a bad start in the first half. The Suns started off very well in the first couple of minutes, but soon went in to the tank. They had some stupid turnovers and just couldn't hit the open 3. That continued through the first half as they limped their way to just 39 points. Thats awful by Phoenix Suns standard. The Lakers on the other hand didn't do much better, but Kobe was hot and they established an early lead. Suns erased it when MP3 Nash tied it with a three-ball, but then Kobe went from red-hot to white-hot to finish the half. He scored 11 straight including a ridiculous 3 at the buzzer with Marion and another guy hanging all over him and pushing him further out behind the 3-point line. So the Fakers went in with a 9 point lead.
It's interesting how everybody from the Suns side, including yours truly, didn't particularly care about either Kobe's dominance (he had 28 at the half) or the 9-point deficit, but just the Suns offense. If the Suns play their game and hit their shots, there's no way Kobe's 40 or even 50 will beat them. Thats this team's mojo and everybody who understands the Suns know that. They started the 3-Rd going in to Amare and it was immediately obvious that there was more flow to this offense. It's amazing how much this team just looks different if there's a flow to their run-and-gun offense. It doesn't matter how much the deficit is, how bad their defense is, if their offense is flowing and they are scoring, the game just turns their way slowly but surely. The Lakers were still leading and the Suns were having trouble defending them in the 3-Rd, but you could feel the game slowly turning their way as their shots were now going in and they were pushing the tempo a lot more effectively than the first half.
Then the guy who has probably won more games single-handedly for the Suns this year than anybody else not named Steve Nash, took over. It was the Brazilian Blur. This guy is the very definition of the term "instant offense". He just goes on these personal runs where nobody can stop him and
the Suns feed off him. He hit a huge 3 at the 3-Rd quarter buzzer to cut the Lakers lead to 3. It was like he took back all the momentum Kobe had built for the Lakers in the first half with a single shot. All in all, Barbosa scored 26 points to finish the Lakers off and the Lakers always have huge problem defending him.
Believe it or not, the fourth quarter was all about the Suns defense. They bottled up the Fakers and held them to just 10 points. Kobe started heaving wild shots and ended up with 1/10 shooting in the 4-Th. Philip said Kobe got tired, but Kobe didn't think so. The bottom-line is, their offense stalled and Kobe tried to take over with very little success. At the other end, the Suns execution was much better and the Lakers can't defend anybody. Thats a bad combination. Philip said today that he spoke to Kobe about how he didn't trust his team-mates in the fourth and took a lot of wild shots and he also added the Kobe's point was nobody else looked like they wanted the ball. The truth is, both these guys are right and thats a bad state of affairs for this team. Kobe doesn't have a reliable supporting cast around him and his judgement and shot selection is not very reliable at times either. Their only hope right now seems to be Kobe hitting all those crazy shots he takes.
As for the Suns, Barbosa deservedly won the sixth man of the year award today. It was never in doubt, but the timing was good for the Blur coming off his monster game 1. The Matrix, STAT and the MP3, all had decent games while Bell, Diaw and JJ had bad games. I am sure Bell will find his shot eventually, but Diaw is a huge question mark these days. This guy is a hit-or-miss and it's not all his fault either. I think he doesn't know how to play when Amare is on the floor. Speaking of Amare, the Suns need to go to him a lot more in game 2. The Lakers can't defend him and the Suns need to exploit that and get Amare ready for tougher challenges in the future. I wouldn't change a whole lot more with this team right now.
Teams 1 2 3 4
Los Angeles 23 25 29 10 87
Phoenix 18 21 35 21 95
Los Angeles
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Lamar Odom 8-16 1-2 0-1 2-16 2 3 0 1 3 17
Luke Walton 5-8 0-0 0-0 3-6 6 1 0 0 2 10
Kwame Brown 2-6 0-0 0-0 4-7 1 1 0 0 3 4
Kobe Bryant 15-33 5-7 4-8 0-5 1 2 0 0 3 39
Jordan Farmar 4-9 0-0 1-4 0-2 2 1 2 0 4 9
Andrew Bynum 3-4 0-2 0-0 0-3 0 1 0 0 2 6
Maurice Evans 0-3 0-0 0-2 0-2 0 0 0 0 0 0
Smush Parker 0-1 0-0 0-0 0-1 1 1 2 0 1 0
Sasha Vujacic 1-2 0-0 0-1 1-3 0 2 0 0 2 2
Ronny Turiaf 0-1 0-0 0-0 0-1 0 0 0 0 1 0
Brian Cook 0-1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 2 0
Aaron McKie - - - -
Chris Mihm - - - -
Shammond Williams - - - -
Vladimir Radmanovic - - - -
TOTALS 38-84 6-11 5-16 10-46 13 12 4 1 23 87
FG %:.452; FT %:.545; 3PT %:.313
Points of TO:6
Team rebounds:8
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0
Phoenix
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
James Jones 1-3 1-2 0-2 0-1 0 0 0 0 2 3
Shawn Marion 6-13 2-3 2-4 3-16 1 1 2 1 0 16
Amare Stoudemire 9-16 5-6 0-0 3-12 1 0 2 2 3 23
Raja Bell 1-6 0-0 0-5 0-2 1 0 0 0 2 2
Steve Nash 7-17 4-4 2-4 1-1 10 3 0 0 1 20
Boris Diaw 2-7 1-2 0-1 1-3 4 2 0 0 1 5
Leandro Barbosa 10-22 4-7 2-7 0-5 1 2 2 0 1 26
Kurt Thomas 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 1 0
Jalen Rose - - - -
Pat Burke - - - -
Jumaine Jones - - - -
Marcus Banks - - - -
Eric Piatkowski - - - -
Sean Marks - - - -
TOTALS 36-84 17-24 6-23 8-40 18 8 6 3 11 95
FG %:.429; FT %:.708; 3PT %:.261
Points of TO:14
Team rebounds:12
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0
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