Suns are 16-5 which translates to a .762 winning percentage. Thats pretty good by any standards, but a true Suns fan will tell you it could be better. They have lost so far to Lakers (home opener), Atlanta on the road, Golden State and Houston for a 2-game losing streak and the latest defeat at Minnesota. The last one was against a bad team, but it was one of those last game of a 5 game road trip on a back-to-back night against a bad team. Ultimate trap game. A true championship team should close the deal on such games, and thats where there is a slight concern about this Suns team. But any time you can remember all the losses a month in to a NBA season, your team is doing real good. It means they have not lost a whole lot of games.
The 2-game losing streak in the middle against the Warriors on the road and Houston was a little scary. Especially against the Warriors. The Suns have been blown out of Oakland the last 2 times. The Warriors have scored 45 points in the first quarter in both these games and have given Phoenix a bad taste of their own medicine. This is what is disturbing for me when you talk about the Warriors. They may be the only team that plays the Suns style better than them. It takes a lot out of me to say that some other team plays the run-and-gun better than us, but that could be the case with the W's in some sense.
Actually the Warriors don't necessarily play it better than the Suns, but they do play it better against the Suns. In fact lot of people call them "Suns-lite". They also don't shoot quite as well as the Suns. But they match-up very well against the Suns and are very athletic. I will take Amare and Marion's athleticism against anybody, but the Warriors are more athletic at every other position up and down the lineup. They score at ease against the Suns D and they are very active defensively. Their defense is nothing great, but if they put their mind to it, they can be better than the Suns on D. They are quick, athletic, they dig in and are just disruptive. Plus Nellie seems to be having the scoreboard on his ex-stars. After undressing Nowitzki in last year's playoffs, he killed Nash by making him play D. Baron Davis is too big for Nash and Monta Ellis is too athletic for most of the league. Nellie ran pick and rolls with Baron and Monta and just killed Nash on the defensive end. This is not a good match-up for the Suns or the MP3.
Speaking of the MP3, he has been in MVP form the last couple of weeks. His assists totals in the recent road trip were 15, 17, 18, 19 and 15. Thats amazing! He is now averaging 12.3 assists per game and I don't how he does it. Grant Hill has been an awesome fit as expected and Amare is coming into his own. His dunks are getting better and Dwight Howard is the only guy who has made him look a little weak! That will happen against Dwight. 35-20 easy for D12 against the Suns. The Brazilian blur has been good and Marion has been his usual Matrix-self. Diaw is up and down as usual, but Skinner has been a real revelation.
Overall the Suns are doing alright. Lets see how they do against the Spurs and the somewhat struggling Mavs. Until then, the following AD featuring Nash and Amare might be the highlight of this young season.
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