Amare Blocks Nets' Chances

Amare Stoudemire came out with smoke in hs lungs and was not going to let the previous game's shutout bother him. The Suns combined great defense and superb offense, eventually running out to a 22 point lead before finishing off the road-weary New Jersey Nets 99 to 93. Amare was a beast on the interior where he was throwing back shots like a drunken sailor. Amare finished the game with seven blocks where Nash let the offensive charge with 26 points and 13 assists. The Suns took out the big trifecta of Carter, Kidd and Jefferson possibly at my request but it was the rookie Marcus Williams who brought the game back from a double digit deficit in the fourth with 27 points on a offensive flurry.

The Suns again handed the opponent a sizeable lead. They literally took out the big three who went to the bench after being rendered inneffective by the Suns improved defense. That's when the Nets started playing. Marcus Wiliams came in and had the ultimate green light: garbage time in a blowout game. He made good use of his minutes last night and caught fire when the Suns' minds were already in the locker room. Honestly, he didn't really impress me, he had one nice pass and his shots were just pull up jumpers that happened to go in. It was the Suns lack of initiative that let him go off rather than his own dominance.



Nash played yet another MVP game for us and sealed the win. This guy keeps showing up with moves I've never seen before. He hit a game winner a few games back and now he's improving on last season's career stats. Now let's hope we can get continue to have Marcus Banks improve and hopefully in a month he will be able to play 20-25 solid minutes every night to keep Nash healthy for the playoffs. I like what I'm seeing so far and he is definitely improving. Sometimes Marcus falls in love with his shot and he needs to realize that he's out there to set his teammates up as much as he's there to score. Whern Amare is on the court Banks always has that post threat to bail out on if he can't get anything going. He seems like he is having the same problem that hampered Leandro's progress a couple years ago where he is so fast he loses control. Still, he is an upgrade to our backup pg position.



The Suns are slowly puting it together. We are about 10 deep with players that Coach Mike will actually play and that's the most we've ever had. The chemistry still isn't perfect and guys are still learning how to play with one another. Remember, there are a lot more people to get used to having on the floor. Amare has to learn how to play with just about everyone and it is going to take more time. What I like is our adaptability. We lost our MVP point guard and won a game without him, which has been difficult for us in the past We lost our leading scorer and one of our top players so far and won two. We had our dominant superstar shutout and came away with a win. We are going to be so much more versatile and dangerous once everyone gets familiar.




Like a dolphin jumping out of the
water.