The Suns Give Arenas Payback

The Suns stormed into Washington last night on a mission to redeem themselves after the Wiz snapped their franchise-best 15 game winning streak and shocked everyone in the Verizon Center with a near-flawless display of selfless basketball in route to a 127-105 blowout. Arenas had subpar swag all night and didn't dominate the way we're used to seeing him. The Suns relentless attack in the first quarter put them ahead by 21 points and they just continued that pace for the rest of the game.

The Wizards defense is porous at best and the Suns efficient passing game gave them any shot they needed. Leandro Barbosa had a off shooting night yet still managed to dish out 11 assists and grab six rebounds. Nashty led the Suns movement with 27pts and 14asts. The Suns turned the ball over an inordinate amount of times in the first quarter but those Wiz freebies were rendered ineffective by the Suns smothering defense.

Amare was in foul trouble about the entire game so it was the Matrix, Diaw and James Jones who solidified the middle for the Suns and they did a bang up job. Shawn had a great game picking four steals while Boris was active on the glass and breaking down the defense for easy passes to James Jones who was lighting it up and then playing lockdown D. Junior had a monster block on Caron Butler in the first quarter that really set the tone for much of the first half.

Junior picked up Caron near the elbow, Caron wanted to take him inside. Butler flashed some moves but Jones tracked him tight regardless and when Caron put up the shot Jones swatted that rock in the other direction, which initiated our fast break. If James keeps playing like this he's going to be moving up in the rotation in the future.

Nash just broke down any semblance of Washington's D with ease and actually did an admirable job on Arenas who didn't shoot particularly well. He ended up with 31 points but that is a fairly meaningless 31 as they happened when the game was already effectively away.

I'm continually surprised by Barbosa who had a great game last night even when he wasn't scoring prolifically. He realized he needed to make an impact and did so by distributing the ball very well while Nash was on the bench. It looks like our future point guard needs may be filled through a combination of Leandro Barbosa and Boris Diaw, who played point-forward last night as well as it can be played.




With Nash on the bench Diaw took over the distributing in the first half. He would get a switch on the pick and roll and start posting up his smaller defender. If they didn't double, he easily gave his man a move and got to the bucket at will for an easy layup or dunk. When they did double him, he threw difficult no-look passes to open shooters who knocked down the open J. He makes it look so easy.



These guys are getting so comfortable in Coach D'Antoni's system, they don't even need to see the guy they're passing to. Diaw knows which spots of the floor will be occupied, he read's the defense and whips the perfect pass right to the wide open man, without even looking.



After last night, we officially own the Eastern Conference. Our next test is to topple those top Western Conference teams that we haven't beat yet: Dallas, San Antonio, Lakers and Jazz. We still aren't gaining an inch of ground on Dallas in the standings and it's looking like we're going to have to beat them ourselves since nobody else can do it.



We have some easy games in the next week, although they are all on the road, before our showdown with San Antonio and could potentially take this 14 game streak into the Spurs game surfing an 18 game streak. We must win that Spurs game so I'm looking for a winning streak in the 20's this time.