@ <span style="color:#FF8C00">Phoenix Suns(13-6)</span><span style="color:#FF8C00">Steve Nash, Raja Bell, Shawn Marion, Boris Diaw, Amare Stoudemire</span><span style="color:#000000">Key Bench Players: Leandro Barbosa, Marcus Banks, Jalen Rose, James Jones, Kurt Thomas,</span> <span style="color:#0000FF">Orlando Magic(15-7)</span><span style="color:#0000FF">Jameer Nelson, Grant Hill, Trevor Ariza, Tony Battie, Dwight Howard</span><span style="color:#000000">Key Bench Players: Darko Milicic, Keyon Dooling, Carlos Arroyo, Pat Garrity, JJ Redick</span><span style="color:#2E8B57">Injury Report:</span>Phoenix- Sean Marks- IL- ElbowOrlando- Hedo Turkoglu- Out- Ankle Keith Bogans- out- Ankle<span style="color:#FF0000">Valo's X-Factors:</span> <span style="color:#FF8C00">For the Suns</span> it will be Boris Diaw. He is a matchup problem at the 4 spot with his ability to dribble, pass and move around from that position. The Magic are going to have a hard time finding someone to guard him, as our big men will be to slow, and he will be bigger than the wing players we use to guard him. If he gets going, it will be a long night for the Magic.<span style="color:#0000FF">The Magic</span> are going to need Grant Hill's veteran presence more than ever tonight, to keep the team calm and under control on the court. Phoenix is the type of team to lure younger teams into running with them, and Nelson, Arroyo, Ariza, and the younger guys are known to try to run from time to time, and get sloppy trying to run. If they get excited and do that tonight, the Suns will run us out of the building, becaue no one in the league can play them at their pace and be successful. When the team starts to get wild, we will need him to step up grab the ball, and get everyone under control. If he is not here for us tonight, it may be a long night.<span style="color:#00FF00">Valo's Key Matchup:</span><span style="color:#000000">Amare Stoudemire vs Dwight Howard.</span> These two young bulls will highlight the night, with their battling at the center position. Howard has the strength advantage over Stoudemire, being a superior rebounder and the better defensive player. Stoudemire has the quickness advantage, and is the superior scorer. Whoever can impose their will on the other, and throw them off their game will set their team up for victory. I am picking Howard to be the better of the two tonight.<span style="color:#FF00FF">Valo's random tidbits:</span> For the Magic both Bogans and Turkoglu are hurt, so I am expecting Trevor Ariza to get the starting nod, but would not be surprised if Keyon Dooling is the starter so keep your eye out for either one to be starting. The Magic should be looking to hit down low often, and slow the game down to a crawl. The Suns will be trying to get us to run with them, and turn this into an up and down, fast paced affair. In the half court they will try to attack the lane alot in hopes of getting alot of kick out three's. On Defense the Magic can not collapse onto the one driving, because that is what the Suns want you to do. They have to stay in front of their man, and play solid man to man defense. This should be a clash of two teams trying to do completely opposite things.<span style="color:#800080">Valo's Prediction:</span> The Suns are playing the fourth road game in five days tonight, and this is the second game of a back to back nighter, which should be taking it's toll on the Suns and leaving them rather fatigued for the game. The Magic need to take advantage of their strength and power on the inside, and I think we will do it to the max. Tonights game, I think the Magic win in the Amway Center.
So I was wrong again, and Hill is going with Dooling. I would rather Ariza, but Dooling is not a bad starting option either. Redick should get some good minutes tonight with us having injuries on the wing.edit: Outlaw has not done one thing good since getting into the game. He has caused us a possesion, left people wide open, goal tended, fouled people that was obviously going to make the basket. Get him out of there.
At half time the Suns are up by two, 55-53. This was an entertaining first half, but it was played at a pace I was not to happy with us. We was running entirely way to much with the Suns, way more than we should have been running. Howard was doing good on defense when he was in the game. When he went out with 2 fouls, Stoudemire only had 4 points. Now Stoudemire has 16 points, which is not good at all. Milicic played well in his place though, particularly on the offensive end of the court where he has 10 points on 4 of 6 shooting, and 2 of 3 on free throws. Hill was very good early in the game, hitting his first four shots, and goes to the half with 11 points. When he came into the second half Hill was not nearly the same player. Had two straight turnovers because of traveling violations. Dooling is playing well in the starting role with 10 points. Moving without the ball, and taking two jumpers that were well hit. Ariza was outstanding off the bench for us, having a turnover, and about two other deflections that went for turnovers. Arroyo has not been playing well, he has been over dribbling, and has taken two bad shots. He holds the ball in one place for to long without doing anything which I dont like at all right now. Bo Outlaw is completely useless these days, and did WAY more wrong than good. I hope he does not come back in during the second half.edit: here in the second half the Magic are looking like garbage, loosing 75-56 now. They keep shooting jumpers, that keep missing. This is completely going away from their strengths which is attackingthe rim, and getting inside. They need to start attacking, this is not a good defensive team.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (valo35 @ Dec 11 2006, 08:13 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>At half time the Suns are up by two, 55-53. This was an entertaining first half, but it was played at a pace I was not to happy with us. We was running entirely way to much with the Suns, way more than we should have been running. Howard was doing good on defense when he was in the game. When he went out with 2 fouls, Stoudemire only had 4 points. Now Stoudemire has 16 points, which is not good at all. Milicic played well in his place though, particularly on the offensive end of the court where he has 10 points on 4 of 6 shooting, and 2 of 3 on free throws. Hill was very good early in the game, hitting his first four shots, and goes to the half with 11 points. When he came into the second half Hill was not nearly the same player. Had two straight turnovers because of traveling violations. Dooling is playing well in the starting role with 10 points. Moving without the ball, and taking two jumpers that were well hit. Ariza was outstanding off the bench for us, having a turnover, and about two other deflections that went for turnovers. Arroyo has not been playing well, he has been over dribbling, and has taken two bad shots. He holds the ball in one place for to long without doing anything which I dont like at all right now. Bo Outlaw is completely useless these days, and did WAY more wrong than good. I hope he does not come back in during the second half.edit: here in the second half the Magic are looking like garbage, loosing 75-56 now. They keep shooting jumpers, that keep missing. This is completely going away from their strengths which is attackingthe rim, and getting inside. They need to start attacking, this is not a good defensive team.</div>The refs terribly called this game.And...Travis Diener has more value to this team then JJ Redick. :thumbdn1:
Diener played decent defense on Nash there for a while in the fourth quarter, and I don't think Redick would have been able to play defense like that on Steve Nash.Your right though, the refs called some bs fouls, a couple on Howard. Those last two fouls on Howard were retarded, and then they made up for it by calling stupid bs fouls on Kurt Thomas. They let Amare Stoudemire push and rough house as much as he wanted, but every time Howard got rough they called fouls on him it was ridiculous. Then Howard lost his cool, and got us the technical, and then Hill got us a technical. Those refs were completely BS'ing those calls against us down low last night.The Magic's three point shooting hurt us, not keeping Ariza in for longer, and stopping passing him the ball killed us. Free throw shooting was terrible, any time you shoot 11-21 on free throws, that is completely retarded. They went away from their game plan alot by settling for jumpers early in the shot clock that I thought was completely unneeded. Arroyo did this on a few occasions, then they was slow getting back on defense. Grant Hill played like a champ the first quarter, and played like crap the rest of the game. In fairness to him, they did switch from Bell guarding him in the first half, to Marion guarding him. You can tell Hill has lost a lot of steps, because any time the good defenders have been on him, he can't get to the rim as well. Marion, Prince and Iguodola have all given him problems. This was just a horribly played game, most of it from the second half of play, as the first half we looked pretty good.
