Suns warming up

Sorry for the lack of updates Suns fans. I've been a little busy and some games I'm catching on radio (free NBA Audio League Pass FTW) or other means. This past week brought some dysfunctional Eastern conference teams to PHX.

The Knicks came to town with Stephon Marbury. Apparently Isiah Thomas told him he was getting yanked from the starting lineup. Then according to varying accounts, Marbury threatened to blackmail Thomas and possibly tried to fight him. After the summer the Knicks had, kinda makes sense.

Grant Hill had a terrific game, scoring 21 on 8 shots only missing once. Four starters scored over 20 points in the 113-102 win.

I had to listen to this game on internet radio and it was great to hear Al McCoy calling the action. Another strange note after this game. The Suns lead by as many as 21 in the fourth and Knicks bench rallied to cut the lead to 10. Apparently the crowd wasn't too into the game and Coach D'Antoni called out the team's effort and the weak crowd support as well.

The floundering Chicago Bulls limped into PHX to start their annual circus road trip. The only thing interesting about the team has been off the court. The Kobe Bryant trade rumors, Deng and Gordon rejected low ball contract offers and scrubs are calling team meetings about their awful play.

The Suns kept them reeling with a 112-102 win. Grant had another solid game with 24 points, 17 in the first half. The Bulls rallied late behind some hot shooting and a slew of fouls called on Amare Stoudemire. When Amare left the game, Boris Diaw took over.

After an awful start, Boris (10 pts, 7 reb, 5 TO) scored on three straight possessions including a nice AND1 on a give n go with Steve Nash. The team showed a lot of poise as Chicago tightened their defense and started to hit some jumpers. The Suns defense picked up and Phoenix had too many scoring options for Chicago to deal with. Nash (10 pts, 15 ast) found Hill and Marion (21 pts, 9 reb, 2 stl, 2 blk) going to the rim and Barbosa (25 pts, 5-7 3FG) was on fire yet again.

The Suns then went to Houston to face the suddenly cooling Rockets. Tracy McGrady (elbow) is hurt again and the team had dropped 3 straight heading into the matchup. The Rockets improved their bench in the offseason and brought in Rick Adelman to reshape the team into an offensive power to go with their strong defense.

The defense was missing for the Rockets in this one. The Suns came out scorching and dropped 69 in the first half on over 70% shooting. The Suns held off a late Houston rally to win 115-105.

All five starters hit double figure led by Amare and LB with 21 apiece. Amare (8-8 FG, 13 reb, 2 blk) and Shawn Marion (18 pts, 11 reb, 4 blk, 1 stl) combined to shut down Yao Ming (12 pts, 4-17 FG). The Suns shot 62% for the game but wasn't all pretty. The team had 25 turnovers and went 19-29 from the free-throw line to continue the poor early season shooting. The team was missing Raja Bell (ankle). Coach D'Antoni went 8 deep on the bench, getting a couple of threes from the Polish Rifle in a brief stint.

Thoughts
The team is winning despite not playing all that well for long stretches during games. The good record is nothing to complain about though because the West is too strong to fall off the pace. Consider the prospect of being a 3 seed and having to play a six seed like Houston or Denver, a two seed like Dallas and then face the one seed San Antonio. That's just to get to the Finals where Detroit or Boston could be waiting.

I'm surprised by the vast amount of complaining about the team. D'Antoni's comment about the crowd is rather bold to me because I've felt for years the Suns have no homecourt advantage. The crowd is only fired up when the team is front running and popular road teams still draw large contigents in the USAC. The crowd may feed off the team but it seems like whenever the team doesn't play well or even wins ugly, it's a travesty. TIcket prices are expensive though, maybe it is a travesty when you drop a couple grand and the team looks sluggish.

Sure the playoffs left a bad taste in everyone's mouth but getting back there is a six month process. The team has injuries and new personnel to absorb into the Suns culture. So far the results are mixed but they are finding ways to win games. The regular season does matter. Chicago dropped their last game of the season last year and gave Cleveland an easy road to the Eastern Conference Finals and got Miami and Detroit in the first two rounds. We want to see this team peaking in April but they will have to win at a consistent clip to get the 1 or 2 seed in the West.

I'm liking Grant Hill more as he finds his niche with the team. He's taking fewer threes and he's taking them in the corners. He's been putting up good scoring nights on few shots. He's playing big minutes though and D'Antoni needs to cut them back for the long haul. Sidenote on Grant. I watched the Oprah episode he shot between the games with New York and Chicago. He said some stuff about being a father to daughters that I felt was really powerful. It's to see our favorite team has real character guys on the roster.

The scoring outputs are increasing and efforts have been promising given that the team has played few games at full strength. I personally would like to see more bench minutes but the team has to do a better job of stretching leads. The schedule is light on elite teams and the team has 4 out of 6 at home before the next big Eastern swing. There's a good chance to stretch this win streak as guys continue to get healthy.