The season is over for the Suns. For all the hype about the Western conference playoffs, it's all done in 6 games or less. One sweep, 2 series ending 4-1 and only one going 4-2. Who would have thought both the Suns and the Mavs would be eliminated 4-1 in the first round. Neither team could really win game 5 on the road and force a game 6 at home. The Suns had a great shot, but couldn't close out much like every other Spurs game they play. Surprisingly, Nash screwed up big-time in this one. He turned the ball over thrice with Boris Diaw throwing the ball into the crowd for one more, all in the last 2 minutes. Essentially the Suns threw away both the games at San Antonio. Thats a tough way to win a playoffs series.
The interesting part of game 5 and 6 was the resurgence of Diaw. He started for Hill and did a decent job of defending Tony Parker. I had no idea he could hang with a speedster like Tony. The ball also went repeatedly to him on offense because he was always mismatched with a small guy. Now people are saying he should play at small forward next season and do this every game. In game 6, the ball went repeatedly to him and it was weird to see Diaw being the goto guy on a team with Shaq, Nash and Amare. Nash even suggested that they improvised too much in this game and that why they lost. Nash didn't shoot too well either and that could be because he was not in rhythm all-night since he didn't control the ball as much as he usually does. He had just 7 assists in game 4 and 5 combined. Thats a bad game for the MP3, much less a 2-game stretch. That tells you the Ball went through Diaw a lot more and he surprised everybody with his play. But the Suns still lost and now the question is, what can they do to improve?
All of this brings us to Mike D'Antoni. I thought he'll be gone and Amare talks like he is already gone. But Kerr is still trying to keep him. They had a 2-hour conversation today and apparently they are going to meet again next week for more. Mark Cuban has already fired Avery and apparently he would love to have D'Antoni though Nowitzki has come out and said he doesn't want another Don Nelson type system. Interesting. But Chicago and Toronto are also in the mix and they say D'Antoni likes the Chicago situation a lot. So he is really not under a lot of pressure. If D'Antoni gets fired, the Suns might be interested in Avery making this a unique situation where we have the coaches swapped. It will be wild, though I don't think it'll actually happen. Anyways, I wouldn't mind if Kerr changes the coach. I don't mind if Mike D'Antoni returns either. But he definitely has to develop and use a bench. I know there will be a lot of talk about defense, but bench to me is number 1 and defensive intensity, strategy and effort comes next.
I am sick of the Suns starters getting worked to their bones all season and hence declining in the playoffs with fatigue and sore body parts. Seems to happen to Nash every year. Not using the bench is a double-whammy. You end up not developing a good bench to replace your starters if they get injured or suspended or whatever and you weaken your starters physically to the point you need to use the bench (which you didn't develop). You also need a bench to give a different look once in a while. D'Antoni has to solve this issue for sure. Lets see what happens with Kerr and him. In the East, Boston of all the teams is playing a game 7 on Sunday. Atlanta has managed to win all their home games and the Celtics don't look all that invincible right now. The Pistons looked shaky, but woke up and wrapped up the series eventually. Orlando won and Cleveland wrapped up the series at Washington after losing game 5 at home. "Over-rated" LeBron had a triple double while I guess DeShawn Stevenson, who called him over-rated, had a good time at the post-game buffet table. Lakers start their series against the Jazz on Sunday and should be a great series. Hopefully it may even go to 6 games! There are reports leaking that Kobe has won the MVP award. Good for him.
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