An interesting thing is happening to the Phoenix Suns this season. They are getting to be be very methodical and efficient at times. This team has given us some of the most fun and exhilarating basketball over the last 3 years, but now they are taking that next step where they execute to a script and put teams away. Thats what the "boring" Spurs do, but then again who's complaining if you win 3 championships over the last 9 years. The Suns are not at that "boring" level yet, not even close, but you can clearly see the evolution of this team as a true contender. They got Amare now in the middle and there was just no doubt that they would win this game and close out the Lakers. Believe it or not, more experts doubted if Spurs will close out at home than the Suns. Of course part of that is because the Lakers are not as good as the Nuggets, but still this Suns team means business and is working like a machine right now.
The Suns came out firing and took a 9 point lead into the second quarter and extended it to 12 at the half. The only black spot in the script was when the Lakers actually came back to within 2 in the third quarter. The Lakers made the run behind a monstrous quarter by Lamar Odom. He was tremendous in this game and had a 33-10 night on 21 shots. Kobe hit some big 3's in the fourth to engineer another mini-comeback as the Suns pulled away again after the Lakers got to within 2, but his night was up and down. He had 34 points on 13-33 shooting against the new dad Raja Bell. The Suns kept their poise through both the Lakers run in the third and the fourth and closed this game out behind some solid interior play by Marion and Amare. Amare had a monster series and todays' 27-16 was just an icing on the cake. If you are a Suns fan, this is exactly the Amare you want going into the Spurs series. Marion had 26-10 as he had a good series as well. His playoff performance is always a hot topic in Phoenix and he shut his critics up at least till the second round starts.
As for the Lakers, Kobe said it best with a "do it and do it now" ultimatum to the front-office. All of a sudden, the talk of Kobe running out of his "prime time" is coming up all over the place. It looked like this was a young and improving team just 2 years back, but now it looks like all this youth is just wasting Kobe's great talent. Kobe has a lot of miles on his body and he has just 4 years of his prime left. He'll still be good at 33, 34 but probably not this good. So the Lakers better do something soon. I would say they trade Lamar Odom to get someone who fits Kobe better. Lamar is awesome, but not with Kobe.
The Suns now have to play the Spurs in the second round. This is a matchup nightmare for the Suns. For some reason, the Spurs always handle the Suns well. Two years back, it was because the Spurs could run with the Suns with Tony and Ginobli when they had to and of course they out-executed the Suns in the half court when they want to. It feels like they have gotten even better this year with this matchup. They don't even run as much and just slow down the Suns to their pace. The Suns have home court and they better put it to good use. All the games this season between these two were won by the home team and the Suns fans hope that trend continues in this playoffs. It would be interesting to see how this series starts off on Sunday in Phoenix.
Teams 1 2 3 4
Los Angeles 23 29 33 25 110
Phoenix 32 32 27 28 119
Los Angeles
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Lamar Odom 13-21 6-9 1-1 5-10 2 1 1 1 6 33
Luke Walton 1-3 0-0 0-1 1-4 0 2 1 1 6 2
Kwame Brown 2-4 0-1 0-0 2-7 0 2 1 0 3 4
Kobe Bryant 13-33 6-7 2-8 0-4 1 6 1 0 2 34
Jordan Farmar 4-6 3-4 0-1 0-5 2 1 3 0 2 11
Maurice Evans 2-4 0-0 0-2 0-1 0 0 0 0 0 4
Andrew Bynum 1-1 0-0 0-0 1-2 0 1 0 0 1 2
Shammond Williams 1-3 0-0 0-1 0-0 0 1 0 0 1 2
Ronny Turiaf 4-10 4-6 0-0 6-10 1 0 2 0 4 12
Brian Cook 2-3 1-1 1-2 0-1 0 0 0 1 4 6
Smush Parker 0-2 0-0 0-1 0-1 0 1 0 0 3 0
Sasha Vujacic 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0 0 0 0 0
Aaron McKie - - - -
Chris Mihm - - - -
Vladimir Radmanovic - - - -
TOTALS 43-90 20-28 4-17 15-45 7 15 9 3 32 110
FG %:.478; FT %:.714; 3PT %:.235
Points of TO:17
Team rebounds:7
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0
Phoenix
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
James Jones 2-5 1-1 2-5 0-0 0 2 0 0 2 7
Shawn Marion 11-21 3-3 1-5 3-10 2 0 3 2 5 26
Amare Stoudemire 6-16 15-21 0-0 4-16 1 2 2 0 5 27
Raja Bell 3-7 0-0 2-4 2-3 3 0 0 0 3 8
Steve Nash 5-15 7-8 0-2 0-2 10 7 0 0 1 17
Leandro Barbosa 6-12 3-4 3-7 1-1 1 1 3 0 3 18
Boris Diaw 3-4 2-2 0-0 2-5 4 1 2 0 3 8
Kurt Thomas 4-6 0-0 0-0 0-3 2 1 0 1 1 8
Jalen Rose - - - -
Pat Burke - - - -
Jumaine Jones - - - -
Marcus Banks - - - -
Eric Piatkowski - - - -
Sean Marks - - - -
TOTALS 40-86 31-39 8-23 12-40 23 14 10 3 23 119
FG %:.465; FT %:.795; 3PT %:.348
Points of TO:25
Team rebounds:17
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0
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