1. Amare Stoudemire crapped his pants last night. He scored 20 points in the first half and then virtually disappeared in the second, going completely ice cold from the field. In the first half he was making outside jumpers, fade-aways, and his patent slash and dunk plays to the rim. It was awesome to watch and I think he went 9/11. In the second half, however, he just kept throwing up bricks, going 0/6 in the third quarter and eventually scoring a few more points. What gives?
2. The Suns looked like Denver last night: A lot of scoring, a lot of pizazz, but virtually no defense. The result: Parker and Ginobili had clear paths to the rim the entire night, and made the Suns suffer. My sense is that the Suns coaching staff told their team to lay off the fouls last night. Shaq and Amare stayed out of foul trouble and the paint was virtually uncontested for the Spurs perimeter players. But this strategy backfired because the Spurs play good defense and completely shut down the Suns on offense. For this strategy to work, your team has to match the points you're giving up on defense.
3. Ginobili is a soulless robot. He actually looks like an alien, cold and emotionless, just sitting there on the bench doing math problems in his head. He rarely shows emotion, let alone a smile or even a scowl. His 6th Man of the Year award really drove this point home: he couldn't even smile or say thank you for the award when they handed it to him. At least look like you're happy, you damn fool!
4. Nash had a horrendous game and the Spurs completely shut him down. The best example of this was the way the Spurs shut down Nash's feeder passes from the top of the arc. Every time Nash brought the ball down court, Bowen and Parker smothered him and denied his initial passes or pick and roll opportunities. The result was Nash doing those stupid behind-the-back passes to Amare which he couldn't handle.5. Shaq is still out of shape and after 22 minutes, he looked gassed and lethargic. The Suns need to do a better job managing his minutes so he doesn't flame out in the 3rd quarter like he did last night.
6. Down 17 with 4 minutes left to play, I still thought the Suns could make it a game...and they did, but ended up losing anyway. Very frustrating to watch.
7. Diaw and Barbossa had terrible games, and for the Suns to get back into this series, they'll need help from these players.
2 comments:
So unlikely that the Suns will win now. San Antonio is just so good and methodical and consistent and deep, I can't imagine them having such a severe breakdown that they lose this series.
Phoenix will most likely win one at home and go on to lose the series. If they have any chance of winning this, they'll need to win both games at home, guaranteeing them a game six back in Phoenix. I'm really really hoping for this because 1) I predicted and want the Suns to win the series 2) I want no part of the Spurs in the finals (although the Celtics have shown that they are more than capable of handlind the regular-season edition of the Spurs) 3) It would be so dissapointing if this series goes less than 6 games. This promised to be the most exciting first round series in a long time. As exciting as the games have been, a lopsided outcome would leave a bad taste in my mouth.
me too and you bring up a good point for celtics fans: would you rather face kobe (and the lakers) or duncan, parker and ginobili as the spurs in the finals?
watching the suns last night makes me think LA would be the better option
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