CP3 for MVP

The NBA playoffs are in full swing and the Western first rounds are all actually at the brink of elimination while Boston and Detroit are tanged up at 2-2 in both their series. Orlando eliminated Toronto and Lakers took care of Denver. But surprisingly the other 3 western series are all at 3-1 with San Antonio and New Orleans going back home. The marquee match-ups have not lived up to the hype. The only thing that can spice things up is if the Suns take this series back to Phoenix. They are playing game 5 in the Alamo tomorrow night after crushing them at home yesterday. Dallas has had problems against the Hornets and I would be surprised if this series goes back to Dallas. That foul by J-Kidd yesterday on Jannero Pargo was really bad. I am surprised Kidd wasn't suspended. That would have sealed the Mavs fate who are having all kinds of problem defending Chris Paul even with Kidd.

Speaking of CP3, the hottest debate in the NBA is about who's going to win the MVP - Kobe or CP3. My vote is for CP3. Kobe is the best player in the league. But he has an awesome team. Kobe has been in the midst of the prime of his career for the last 2 or 3 years and I don't think he has been any better this year than the last 2 if not 3 or 4 years. He just has a much better record than in the past because Andrew Bynum exploded this season. The other Lakers youngsters improved dramatically this season as well. Plus they added Pau Gasol, an all-star caliber player. You shouldn't even call Pau, Lamar and Bynum as Kobe's "supporting cast". They are much, much more than that. Chris Paul has quite a bit of talent (Peja, Chandler, David West) around him as well but it's not Laker good. Plus he makes his teammates go much more than Kobe. Kobe is getting a lot of credit for making his teammates better, but the teammates have gotten better all by themselves. All Kobe has done this season is that he has given up a few shots and not hogged the ball like he usually does.

Again, Kobe is the best player in the league, but to me there are 2 criterion for the MVP award. One, is your team an elite team? If your team can't win enough games with you, how can you be the MVP of the entire league? You are barely contributing to your team. Secondly, can your team win without you? in other words, how indispensable are you for your team? This is why I supported Nash winning 2 back-to-back MVPs and wouldn't have minded him winning another one last year and even be in the running for this year's MVP if only the Suns were ranked in the top 4in the West. Kobe actually scores high on both accounts, but so does CP3. I would rank CP3 just a little higher in the "indispensable" scale. Plus Kobe has much better talent around him like I said earlier. So CP3 is my MVP. Lot of journalists are openly saying they voted for Kobe more as a "lifetime achievement" award. Kobe, for all his talents, has never won the MVP and this is bothering some people. He probably could have won a MVP or two in the past if only the talent around him was any better, but he never made them any better until this year and this year, the talent is just way too good for me to give Kobe all the credit.

So I vote for CP3.

End of an Era

Suns' embarrassing, blow-out loss at home against the Spurs on Friday when the Spurs led start-to-finsh was more than just a loss. It could be an end of an era - a glorious era at that. The last 4 years have been the best Suns basketball, may be even the best basketball I have ever seen. Mike D'Antoni and Nash brought an unique and refreshing new style to town that captured everybody's imagination. It was run and gun and all fun. But the Spurs ruined it for all of us. They just played better defense and time and again proved that their style is better than the Suns as far as winning championships go. The Suns just could not solve the Spurs riddle. They realized they couldn't do it this year either and thats why they got Shaq. It looked good for a while as the Suns dominated the Spurs in both the games they played since the trade. The playoffs looked good for the Suns as well until very late in to game 1. But after that ridiculous ending to the first game of this series, the Spurs have resurrected and are handling the Suns and Shaq pretty easily.

So clearly nothing is working against the Spurs. D'Antoni is not working. Nash and the run-and-gun is not working. Amare and Barbosa and Diaw and Shaq aren't working either. They could actually get swept. How shocking is that! They are still second to the Spurs but the problem is, you can't even say they are second only to the Spurs. The Spurs have always been the best team in the league and the Suns were right behind. The Suns are still behind, but a few teams might have over-taken the Spurs, with "might" being the operative word. Lakers, Boston and even the Hornets and the Jazz could potentially beat the Spurs. Some people are saying the Suns may miss the playoffs next season. Thats how ugly things are right now.

So the Suns have to rebuild and reload and retool. It starts with the coach in this case. I am not one of those guys who wants the coach fired after every loss. We live in an era of instant gratification these days where fans want results immediately. You can't blame them because they are paying a tonne of money for their tickets and why should they put up with mediocrity? They also have 100 different channels to watch if their team is losing on TV. There is way too much money involved in sports and with the GMs and coaches making millions, they just can't hold on to their jobs for 4 or 5 years without improving and moving in the right direction towards a championship. So Mike D'Antoni has to go. This firing won't even be one of those "this is the culture in the NBA (and our society) these days. We are impatient and coaches get fired too soon" thing. This firing would actually be fair in some sense because Mike is a very special coach who runs a very unique system and this system has been shown to be in-effective against the Spurs 3 out of 4 years (including this one). So you got to change. I would be very surprised if D'Antoni comes back as the Suns coach next year. I am one of the biggest D'Antoni fan. I am sure he will have a job-offer within hours because he can build a fun team like no other. Chicago and Toronto are probably already waiting for the Suns to fire him. He is an excellent asset to an organization that doesn't have championship expectations unlike the 07 Suns. Thats exactly why he did so well with the 04 and 05 Suns.This team is not getting any younger and the Suns don't have a lot of cap-room. This roster can be tweaked, but not changed a whole lot. So I can't see how the Suns can go into next season with the same set of players and the same coach. That dog aint gonna hunt. Steve Kerr has to make a move and I think he will.

It'll be a sad day for me and the Suns and the NBA when that happens because Mike-D re-invented a style of play in the NBA that was 100 times more watch-able than the style that was in vogue the previous 15 years. Along with Steve Nash, he created poetry in motion and many teams copied parts of it to speed up the game. NBA was looking good again. Unfortunately defense wins championship and this Suns team with real bad defenders in Nash, Barbosa and Diaw and a semi-decent Amare was never going to get it done in the playoffs against the Spurs. The Spurs on the other hand consistently shut the Suns down by making sure their defenders stayed with the 3-point shooters and with Bowen locking up Nash. No meaningful adjustments from the Suns and if Nash is cut off, this offense is done. They probably can't even beat a San Antonio high school team without Nash. Thats the other problem with this system - there is none. It's basically Nash running and dishing or probing and figuring out what to do in half-court. When Bowen cuts him off, it's game over for the Suns. Plus Nash is also getting exposed defensively as Parker is killing him. Good young athletes like Shawn Marion and Joe Johnson are no longer with the Suns and hence Nash is getting exposed on defense even more.

Speaking of Joe Johnson, one has to wonder how much of this is Robert Sarver's fault? While we were all happy to see how good Diaw was when he was new in town and excited about the high draft pick that Atlanta gave us, it's clear now Diaw is no Joe Johnson. Plus Atlanta has won one more game than the Suns this off-season as of today and that means that high pick the Suns get next year, is not that high after all. That sucks big-time. All this because Robert Sarver didn't make the right financial decision on Joe Johnson. You think Suns can use Joe Johnson in this series? Do you think Bowen guards Nash if Joe was on the roster? Do you think Nash gets exposed so much on D if either Joe or Matrix is in this roster? How about Sarver also trading all his top picks the last few years to cut salary? You telling me these Suns can't use Luol Deng, Nate Robinson, Rajon Rando and Sergio Rodriguez? When things go fine like it did the last few years, we tend to forget these bad decisions. But when we get (almost) swept in the first-round, they all come back to haunt us. I am beginning to think this may be one of the worst managed franchises the last few years which has had one of the best records in the NBA not because of it's front-office and ownership, but inspite of them! These fools have shot this team for the next few years. They have taken a young, championship caliber team and made it a old, over-the-hill team in 3 years.

Congrats Sarver. You deserve to be swept. But the Suns should win one for the fans on Sunday and I am pretty sure they will.

Must-Win

Steve Nash put it best. Game 1 was a kick in the groin, game 2 was a punch in the mouth. That 3-Rd quarter in game 2 was terrible for the Suns. It was deja vu all over again with a strong dose of history repeating itself. It looked awfully familiar to Suns fans who have seen the Suns play and mostly lose to the Spurs 3 of the last 4 playoffs including the current series. The more things change with Shaq and stuff, the more things stay the same. The Spurs turned on the defensive heat. Bruce Bowen harassed Nash and neutralized him. The Suns were lost without Nash dominating. Spurs also managed to shut off Amare, which is something nobody has done for a couple of months including these Spurs in the first half of this very game. Suns were sloppy, ineffective and looked over-matched as they scored just 11 points in that 3-Rd quarter.

How do you score 35 in the first and just 11 in the 3-Rd? Thats exactly the problem with this team - inconsistency at both end of the floor. Especially against good teams like the Spurs, the Suns rarely play well at both ends of the floor at the same time. They are defensively bad most of the time, but if they suck offensively, they at least try harder on defense. But then when the offense is flowing, they just slack off on defense and let Parker and Ginobli drive to the hoop all day. Nash's 23-10 doesn't look that impressive if you consider the fact he gave up 32-7 to Tony Parker. Nash gets killed on the defensive end. It's sad, but it's true. Now on to game 3 on Friday. This is the definition of a must-win game. Lets see if the Suns pull it off.

As for the other series, West is not turning out to be as good as expected because the Hornets are killing the Mavs and Lakers are killing the Nuggets. Mavs and Nuggets may play better at home, but they are not looking too good right now. Of course both these teams are dealing with potential MVP candidates in Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul. Kobe had 49 and 10 dimes the other day and CP3 had a 32-5-17 game 2. Ridiculous numbers from both these guys and they are killing their opponents. After all, looks like the top 3 teams in the West are the top-3 for a reason. Though they were not too many games ahead of the lower ranked teams, they are handling them well in the playoffs. Of course, none of this matters if you don't win on the road. The top teams are going on the road and the real fun starts now. Houston went on the road and won 94-42 after losing 2 at home. Thats a weird one where the home team has lost all 3 games. Utah still should win game 4 and wrap this series up sooner than later. In the L-East, LeBron and the Cavs were crushed in Washington today. Game 4 is now very important for the King and the Cavs. Same with Orlando against Toronto. Boston and Detroit should win game 3 on the road.

Tragic ending to a great drama.

Game 1 of the Suns-Spurs was much better than advertised. Thats saying something considering the Western playoffs this year has been hyped by everybody including your truly in this blog. Still, this game surpassed all expectations. It was played at such a high-level, it was gripping drama start-to-finish. Tim Duncan said it felt like a Finals game. Even Chris Paul talked about this game in his post-game presser. Jon Barry says this is the best playoff game he has ever seen. Thats all well and good and I enjoyed it every bit of the way except for the ending. My Suns lost!

The Suns lost after leading by 16 in the first half, 9 in the 4-Th quarter and by 5 in the first OT. Suns lost despite taking the last shot in both regulation and OT. Barbosa and Diaw missed those, and unfortunately, Ginobli wouldn't miss his last shot in the 2-Nd OT after Nashty tied it for the Suns with a ridiculous fade-away 3! Suns lost because the Spurs tied it in regulation and then in OT with 3 pointers from Michael Finley and then by Tim Duncan. Are you kidding me? Tim Duncan hits his first 3 of the season to tie a playoff game against the Suns in OT. Mike D'Antoni's reaction was classic, but you can't leave him that open whether or not you think he can hit a 3.

Speaking of Mike D'Antoni, I think he was a big part of this loss. I am not one of those fans who blames the coach after every loss, but D'Antoni needs to get his act together. I am done with this guy's "man-love" for Barbosa and Diaw. As a Suns fan, I like these guys as much as anybody, especially Barbosa who is a great guy and a terrific player. Diaw has not been the same player he was 2 years back and he has been inconsistent to say the least, but he actually played a great game against the Spurs. But D'Antoni should stop putting the ball in these guys hands at the buzzer like Barbosa is Dwayne Wade and Diaw is freakin LeBron James. When you have Nash, Amare (in regulation) and Shaq why is the ball going to anybody else? Why put the ball in Diaw's hands with 3 seconds to go when this guy is known to pass up open lay-ups and kick the ball out to a team-mate in the corner. What's he gonna manufacture in 3 seconds? Draw up some freakin play for Nash, your lunch ticket.

Also the Suns defense sucked like it always has under D'Antoni. Tony Parker and Ginoble got to the rim at will. Parker single-handedly brought them back in the second quarter when they fell behind 16 as Nash or Barbosa couldn't stay in front of him. Later in the OT, when Shaq was in foul trouble and Amare was already fouled out, Ginobli just had a red-carpet to the rim as he kept driving left. I hate to admit it, defense wins such games and the Spurs got the stops they needed while the Suns couldn't. The Suns make so many mistakes on defense, Popovich will probably shoot somebody during the game if he was coaching this team. Coaching is a huge factor in such games and Pop once again showed why he is so good. When Nash hit the 3 late to tie the game in second OT, the Spurs had just a few seconds to setup a game winning play. But Pop put the ball in Manu's hands and let him run because he knew Shaq was on the bench for offense and if he took a timeout, D'Antoni would put Shaq back in. So Pop wanted his offense to go against the midgets that were on the floor for the Suns at that time and it worked perfectly as Ginobli got a game-winning layup with nobody protecting the paint.

Sad ending to a great game. I am not sure if the Suns can come back and win game 2. They are a resilient team and they need all of their resiliency in game 2. Nash and Amare will come back with a vengence, but will the role players do anything to help? Nash played a great game. The 3 at the end was unbelievable, but he was good the entire second half and the OTs. Bowen didn't play extended minutes in this game for whatever reason and I think Nash was the beneficiary. Apart from that one possession late in the game when the suns had a shot-clock violation, Nash was on-point. But in a game like this, these mistakes stick out as Suns just could not close out the leads they had at various points. Amare was awesome, but he fouled out. Shaq was in foul trouble too. Thats one complaint I had with this game. The refs have to let these guys play. One of the early offensive foul called on Shaq was garbage and it probably changed the complexion of this game, at least for Shaq. There are way too many floppers in the Spurs lineup and the refs just keep giving them what they want.

In any case, I can't wait for game 2.This is exactly the kind of excitement we expected from this year's West.

Playoff Preview

The NBA playoffs are here and the Western lineup is looking awesome right now. The only problem I see is that the projected Western Finals match-up - Suns-V-Spurs is now a first round match-up instead. This is both a sign of how tough the West is a well as how these 2 teams may not be the best in the West to deserve a finals match-up. It kinda sucks for me to admit that teams like the Lakers and may be even the Hornets and Jazz are as good, if not better than the Suns and the Champion Spurs. This means the potential path to the Finals for the Suns is Spurs-Hornets-Lakers. Thats brutal, but it could easily be Spurs-Dallas-Utah as well. I can definitely see Utah beating the Lakers if they meet each other. Same with any other Western match-up. West is just that crazy.

Here are my predictions for the first round. I'll start with the top match-up of the first round - Suns-Spurs. I think with Shaq the Suns are clearly a load to handle for the Spurs. The Suns are 3-1 against the Spurs this season and they are one of the few top teams that the Suns have a winning record against. Clearly this is an important match-up for the Suns and the Shaq move helps them more against the Spurs than any other team in the league. So I pick them to win 4-3. This won't be a cake-walk for sure, especially without home-court, but I really think the Suns can pull this out if they play smart. Nash should play smart. Bowen will make it hard for him on offense and he should make the right decisions. He is the head of the snake and he needs to guide us through this. Amare should stay out of foul trouble. The rest of it will fall in place if Nash and Amare take care of business. I am picking the Suns in 7.

Kobe is back on top as the first seed and it's an amazing rise for the Lakers. They run into AI, Melo and the Nuggets. This is a very sexy match-up on paper and it'll be a prime-time affair, but the Lakers should take it easily. I say 4-1. Dallas-New Orleans is another fascinating match-up. A little bit of an "has-been" versus "wannabe" here as the Mavs used to be where the Hornets are this season. I think the Hornets can handle Dallas though the experience of the Mavs could be a huge factor here. Also Nowitzki has been ballin like a mad-man since he came back from injury. But CP3 is too good and Chris Paul takes his team home in 6 games - 4-2. Utah and Houston will renew there rivalry from last season again when this was an interesting, 7 game first round series. Houston started hot, but T-Mac got bumped out of the first round at the end. Same story here. It should even be easier this year for the Jazz because there is no Yao and the Jazz have been untouchable at home recently. Jazz win 4-1. At least they should, but they might take 6 games. I am not under-estimating the Rockets, but I can't see them beating the Jazz especially with Rafer Alston banged up.

Do I even have to talk about the L-Eastern playoffs? Can't we just cancel the first 2 rounds and start with the Celtics-Pistons finals? We can't because then we will miss watching the King. LeBron James is the wild-card like none other in these playoffs. This guy will single-handedly decide whether or not the Cavs get eliminated in the first round, or go all the way to the finals. Talent-wise, the trash-talking Gilbert Arenas and the rest of the Wizards are probably better. They sure can beat the Cavs, but who can stop LeBron if he has one of those nights? And the way he has been playing this season, he can have 3 of those nights in a seven game stretch and then you got no hope. The Wizards have a lot of talent in Gil, Butler and Twan, but can the sum of these parts exceed the total package that is King James! I say no. Cleveland takes it 4-3. Toronto-Orlando is also an interesting series, but Toronto will fail again in it's quest to go past the first round. D12 and Hedo are too much for Bosh and gang to handle. Magic takes it 4-2. Detroit and Boston should sweep Philly and Atlanta respectively, but Detroit has this habit of sleep-walking for a game or 2 in the playoffs. So I say 4-1 Detroit. But Boston is too focussed and hungry. They get the only sweep of this playoffs.

Let the games begin.

Are you ready for some playoffs?

This is something you hear every year around this time - "I can't wait for the NBA playoffs. This year's Western playoffs should be awesome!". This has been the case for more than 5 years now, but this year's Western playoffs are gonna be off-the-hook. This set of Western teams have taken things to HNL ('hole 'nother 'level). With just 2 days to go in the regular season, the situation at the top is still as fluid as ever. Just 2 games separate teams 1-6. Teams 1-3 are separated by just 1 game and 4-6 by another game. It's wild and of course I am not too happy since the Suns are merely a 6-th seeded team though they are just 2 behind the leader.

Just today Denver clinched the 8-Th seed as the Warriors lost to the Suns and got eliminated. The Warriors will be the first team in 16 years to have won 48 games and still miss the big dance. Thats amazing if you consider that the teams in the West also have a tougher schedule and still have managed so many wins. They have beat each other up with almost every team in the top 9 beating up every other team throughout the season. Of course, these teams were all way better than the Eastern teams and hence won their share of the match-ups against the JV league to post impressive win totals.

In stark contrast, Atlanta is in the playoffs in the L-East with an impressive 37-43 record. While 7 games separate the top 8 teams in the West, Atlanta is a good 27.5 games behind the L-East leading Boston. If you are into under-dogs and upsets, you should be pulling for Atlanta big-time because rarely do such bad teams get a shot in the playoffs. Despite this situation in the L-East, I have the utmost respect for the top teams there. I consider both Boston and Detroit as legitimate contenders with LeBron being the wild-card.

Boston has 65 wins and thats something. They got the big 3 and they play incredible defense. It's amazing how winning is contagious and 70% of all of sports (may be even life) is confidence. The role players in this team play so well and with so much energy and confidence, you wonder why did the same guys suck so bad last year. Of course they didn't have a MVP candidate in KG and Ray Allen, but even individually, the fringe players are playing real well. And of course Detroit is Detroit. They are as good as ever and this time, they won't let LeBron destroy them single-handedly. A Boston-Detroit Eastern Finals should be almost as good as any Western match-up this year.

Coming back to the West, I can't even talk about match-ups yet because nothing is set. But everybody is saying that anything can happen and even if the 8-Th seed beats the 1-St, that wouldn't even be considered an upset. Thats how close things are. As for the Suns, they still are up and down. They had a bad loss to the Mavs 2 weekends back and then against Houston sand-witched around another impressive win against the Spurs. The Shaq trade is working just as planned against the Spurs. I think the Suns can actually beat the Spurs in the playoffs. The Spurs can't handle both Amare and Shaq. This is what the trade was for and it's working as intended. But the problem is, there might be a couple of teams like the Lakers who might be better than both the Suns and Spurs. The Lakers killed the Spurs last weekend and it was shocking to watch. Considering all this, the Suns with no home-court can lose either in the first-round or go all the way.

Bottom-line, nobody knows what's going to happen in the wild, wild West.

Rock-chalk Jayhawk

It's been a few days since the NCAA championship game, but I still had to blog about it. Thats because of 2 reasons. It was one of the best championship game I have ever seen and secondly, it helped me win the bracket! I am more of a pro-guy than a college guy and hence I am neither good nor lucky with the brackets usually. But this year, I went in to the final game all tied and the thrilling Kansas win put me on top.

John Calipari has been defending his team's poor free throw shooting all-season. How ironic that it came back to haunt him at the worst possible time. His team never paid for it's poor performance at the line all-season and actually did much better during the tournament making coach Cal look good with his theories about free throw shooting. But then came the crucial late stretch in the title game and they couldn't hit anything from the line. They let a 8 point lead melt away rather easily in the final minutes. This tiger just could not change it's stripes. On top of that, Cal also seemed to mismanage the last possession on D. With the Jayhawks trailing by 3, he could have just fouled them. Instead Mario Chalmers nailed the 3 and sent the game into OT.

Once it went to OT, you know it was over. Memphis had come from ahead to tie and it was only a matter of time before they lost. A crushing game for Cal and Memphis. I wouldn't be surprised if Coach Cal still has trouble sleeping after this loss. The winning coach, Bill Self, is the biggest beneficiary of this game. No more questions about him and he has done something that even Roy Williams couldn't do in Lawrence. Speaking of Roy Williams, not sure how the NC fans view him wearing a Kansas patch to the game. That was definitely weird. It would have been half-way acceptable if he had not lost to them in the semi-final game. Back to Self. Oki state was already coming hard after him with a tonne of money and he should now feel like he is on top of the World. He did say "NO" to Oki state, but he is expecting Kansas fans will embrace him completely now.

Final 2

This year's NCAA tournament has not been blessed with many close games since the sweet 16 weekend. The games are always fun and interesting because this time of the year is all about college hoops, but the nail-biters have been missing since last week. The Final 4 was no different. It's a really interesting match-up when you got all 4 number 1's lined up. You never know which number is better than which other number one. Memphis looked like they were way better than the UCLA bruins. I was surprised how ordinary UCLA looked against this team. The Tigers are a beast. Calipari had done a great job at Memphis. This guy recruits like a mother. They are loaded with great athletes and they look like a NBA team in disguise the way they run up and down the court and finish the breaks.

Derrick Rose, CDR and Joey Dorsey were too much to handle for UCLA. Dorsey was a factor even without scoring a point. They defended real well and zoned up on Kevin Love. He rarely saw the ball and when he did, had to settle for long jumpers. They locked up Love and gambled on the rest of the Bruins and won the game rather easily. CDR was all over the place and Derrick Rose is the real deal. This quote from John Calipari might be the quote of the tournament. When asked about Derrick Rose going to the NBA next year, Calipari said "if he wants to do what's right for him and his family, he'll go pro. If he wants to do what's right for me and my family, he'll stay". Thats awesome. Rose will be a huge factor in the finals on Monday and might win the MVP of the final 4 when all is said and done.

The other game had a weird start and an weird end and was even weirder in-between. Before people could settle into their seats, North Carolina was down 40-12! People were like "what in the name of Dean Smith is goin on here?" Nothing went right for the heels and Kansas took it to them with tremendous energy and effort. Kansas was all over the place and it looked like they had their hands on every one of NC's passes. Turnovers helped them race to this huge lead and then the game settled down in to a more normal flow. Suddenly Kansas was stuck at 40 as NC started a long-drawn comeback. The heels got all the way back to within 4 points from 28 down and it was an amazing sight. I think Bill Self would have been fired right there if Kansas lost this game. Finally Kansas woke up and went on another big run to win the game 84-66. I have never seem such wild fluctuations in a game quite like this.

So now we have a great championship game between Memphis and Kansas, though the TV channels might have preferred a UCLA-NC finals. We got 2 great teams with a lot of talent and athleticism, and not afraid to play up-tempo, that will go at each other at full-tilt. I think Memphis gets it done. Calipari and Derrick Rose seem too focussed and committed to let this one slip away. I expect a close game. Or who knows, the game could be 40-12 after just 8 minutes.

Jury still out on Shaq.

The jury is still out on the Shaq trade for the most part. Things are looking much better than it did during his first 2 weeks with the Suns, but they still are not quite the World-beaters they need to be to get out of the brutal West. He has gelled really well and is putting up more than decent numbers. He doesn't want the ball and ignites quite a few fast-breaks just like he said he would. There are not too many chemistry issues on the court and the Suns rarely get out-rebounded badly these days, which is a a big difference from the last 3 plus seasons. Despite all this, the Suns are not considered a favorite at this point. They still lose to real good teams. They lost to both the Pistons and the Celtics on the road recently and split the home-and-away with Denver. Those 2 Denver games were awesome, especially the first one when they came back from a 19 point half-time deficit. That win had a potential to be a season-changer much like the Spurs win a few weeks earlier if only the Suns didn't lose the very next day at Denver in another close, high-scoring contest. As of now, even I can't tell you where the Suns really stand. The pecking order in the West changes daily and you would think getting in to the top-4 would be very good for any team because of the home-court.

But if I look closely at the standings, I don't mind it the way it stands today with the Hornets, Spurs, Lakers, Jazz and the Suns at 5. The Jazz are pretty much locked in at 4 because they'll win the division. This means the Suns get in the top 4 only if the Lakers, Spurs or the Hornets drop out. They probably won't catch the Spurs or the Hornets since they are 2 games behind with just 7 games to go. They still can potentially get past the Lakers and get to 3. This means they meet Houston and then the Spurs and probably the Lakers. Thats brutal, though the Suns will beat the Rockets easily. Now if they stay at 5, playing Utah with no home-court will be hell, but the good part is, Spurs and the Lakers will take care of each other. This means the Suns will play the inexperienced Hornets in the second round and have to face either the Spurs or the Lakers in the Western Finals. Granted, the Suns are 0-4 against the Hornets, but some people like the Chuckster are saying the Hornets may even lose in the first round if they play Denver or something. It's never easy in the West, but to me a Utah-New Orleans-San Antonio route sounds better than any route that features both San Antonio and LA.