The Suns got their taint handed to them by the Spurs tonight. They are now only 2 games ahead of the Spurs with 7 games to go and a tough game tomorrow on the road on a back-to-back. Suns went on a late run to make the score respectable, but this game was controlled by the Spurs all the way. I hate the saying "defense wins championships", but the Spurs showed why that's true. They held the Suns to some of their worst stats of the season. The Suns hit just 2/11 threes, shot just 38% from the field and scored just 85 in the game and 37 in the first half. The Spurs bottled the Suns offense behind Timmy and Bowen. Timmy had 5 awesome blocks and Pop put Bowen on Nash all night.
Pop is a great coach and in addition to using Bowen on Nash, he also made sure they stay home on the three-point shooters and let Nash and the big do their thing on the pick and roll. That explains the poor 3-point shooting by the Suns. But the reason the Spurs can do this is because of the great interior defense by Timmy and the gang. So even with the defenders staying on the shooters, Amare and Marion rarely got easy layups or dunks. It' amazing the Spur didn't blow the Suns out by 20 in this one. That was because the Suns played solid defense, though they had no answer for Tony Parker. Their strategy for Tony has always been to give him the open jumper. But he is becoming a better shooter everyday and tonight he hit 12/22 shots for 35 points. Both teams had actually the same number of turnovers, but the Suns turnovers were just more costly. Spurs outscored the Suns 19-8 on fast break point! How twisted is that stat?
The Spurs just expose every weakness in the Suns. They have Duncan and the size to dominate inside. They can out-rebound the Suns. They can defend. Plus they have Tony Parker to expose the only weakness in Nashty' game - his defense. It's just a tough match-up for them and if these teams meet in the Western Semis, God bless the Suns!
In the other game of the day, Miami and Cleveland played a close one, but Miami got the big win on the road. The King had a great game with 35-9-5, but he had some bad plays in the clutch. With the game tied at the end of regulation, he held the ball too long and shot a horrible three with 2 guys on him when he should have either passed to the open guy or quickly dribbled away from the double-team and at least tried to drive and dish or something. The Cavs also threw the ball away a couple of times (once by the King) in OT and the Heat closed it out as both the Daddy and Toine had 20 apiece. The Heat are now ahead of the Cavs in the standings and looking good as they await D-Wade's return. They may not even need him until they run in to Detroit in the L-East.
The NBA changed the playoff ranking rules because the Spurs were ranked 4-Th last year. The Mavs won their Division and the 2-ND and 3-rd spot went to the other division winners who had worse records than the Spurs. So they rank the top 4 by record but the 3 division winners will all be in the top 4 regardless of the record. This year in the East, the top 3 records all belong to the central division and either the Cavs or the Bulls will be ranked 5-Th behind the other 2 division winners who both will have worse records than the third team in the central. So NBA didn't solve the problem. I hope they just say we'll rank everybody purely on records and we'll guarantee playoff spots to the division winners, nothing more, nothing less. You don't get to be second or the fourth seed unless you have the second or the fourth best record in the conference. May be NBA Will do it if the King is hurt by this rule.
As if the L-East is not bad enough already, the Wizards lost Gilbert Arenas for the season and now they have to deal with the playoffs without both their all-stars - Butler and Agent-0. They are pretty much done and there's no reason to watch them in the playoffs.
Phoenix @ San Antonio - 85-92
Miami @ Cleveland - 94-90
Interesting games on the board for Apr 6-Th (Friday)
Dallas @ Denver - Bigger game for Denver than Dallas. The Mavs pretty much have nothing to play for the rest of the way.
Phoenix @ NO/OK Hornets - Suns need to recover from the Spurs loss in less than 24 hours with the Spurs breathing down their neck.
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