<div align="center"> @ </div> <div align="center"><font color="Orange">Phoenix Suns (24-3)</font> @ <font color="SlateGray">San Antonio Spurs (22-6)</font></div> <u><div align="center">Starters for Phoenix</div></u> <div align="center"></div> <div align="center">(Mike D'Antoni)</div> <div align="center">____________________</div> <div align="center"></div> <div align="center">(Steve Nash, Joe Johnson, Quentin Richardson, Shawn Marion, Amare Stoudemire)</div> CourtKing's Word: This is a big test for Amare going up against one of the best in the business in Tim Duncan. This is Amare's chance to show the NBA and the Phoenix Suns that he is at that superstar level right now. Amare against Duncan should be one of the best low-post battles of this year. Something to watch out for is Amare's rebounding ability against Tim Duncan. Remember, Amare only had 6 last game against the Raptors. If Amare would be covering Duncan that means that Shawn Marion (6'7") would be covering Radoslav Nesterovic (7') which is a big mismatch down low. <div align="center">__________________</div> <u><div align="center">Starters for San Antonio</div></u> <div align="center"></div> <div align="center">(Gregg Popovich)</div> <div align="center">_______________________</div> <div align="center"></div> <div align="center">(Tony Parker, Emanuel Ginobili, Bruce Bowen, Tim Duncan, Rasho Nesterovic)</div> Courtking's Word: The Spurs should take advantage of the Suns small lineup by going to center Rasho Nesterovic more often. I'll expect a big game from both of the Spurs post players, Duncan and Rasho. Rasho is going up against Shawn Marion who is 5" smaller then him. This could be one of those games where the Suns would make Q come off the bench and possibly start Jackson Vroman to avoid the mismatch. <div align="center">_____________________________</div> <font size="2">Courtking's Prediction:</font> This should be a very close game all the way to the 4th quarter. With Duncan and Amare battleing down low, I'll expect Amare to get into foul trouble early with the Spurs taking an early lead after the first on the Suns. The Suns bounce back in the 2nd though, and bounce back big, the Suns will be leading at half by 6. In the 3rd, Amare picks up his 4th and will have to sit until the 4th. This is where the Spurs make up there ground, going on a 10-0 run to lead by 4 at the end of the 3rd. With 5 minutes to go in the game, Suns down 94-90, back-to-back three balls by Joe Johnson and Steve Nash give the Suns the lead going into the final 2 minutes. The Suns would never lose the lead again, as they win by 2. Suns - 98 Spurs - 96
Looking forward to the game, Suns might struggle at the start but will put a run together and win 104-97.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting sneballa7:</div><div class="quote_post">Man, the Suns are getting spanked. The Spurs were ready for this game.</div> Some absolutely horrible officiating really broke the pace of the suns and got them off-balance. Then the apparently just gave up. I blame Popavich's temper tantrum (which shoulda got him ejected, yelling, cursing coming onto the floor during play) overly influencing the refs. Especially that dumb bitch Violet whatever. Then you had the rookie referee who was apparently clueless and got over-ruled at least once on a BS call. I quit watching after a ways into the 3rd quarter and just kept tabs on the score on suns.com -- Very disappointing all around, but in the end.. just one game in the regular season.
Face it... you got beat by a better overall team. The Spurs don't play small ball, they have a deep bench they are experienced. They are a playoff team, unlike the Suns. And today it showed the Spurs true skill, by spanking the "best team in the league"...
<div align="center">Spurs - 115 Suns - 94 </div> <div align="center"><u>Key Stats</u></div> <div align="center">Amare Stoudemire: 37 points, 12-19 FG, 13-14 FT, 7 boards, 1 block</div> Thats it, one person showed up to play last night and that was Amare. Showing that he can play with the big boys in San Antonio. The rest of us just proved to the league that we need to improve to run with the big boys. Our second leading scorer to Amare had 12 points! Nash only had 4 assits, the only positive I can think in this game is Amare haveing 37 points against a former MVP, thats it. Well we got 4 days to prepare for our next game against the Trail Blazers. <div class="quote_poster">Quoting Mr.Wade:</div><div class="quote_post">Face it... you got beat by a better overall team. The Spurs don't play small ball, they have a deep bench they are experienced. They are a playoff team, unlike the Suns. And today it showed the Spurs true skill, by spanking the "best team in the league"...</div> I have to agree here. This is a good wake up game and a good game to see where we are at until we reach that championship level and I think this game showed us that we have a couple ways to go, until we reach that mark.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Mr.Wade:</div><div class="quote_post">Face it... you got beat by a better overall team. The Spurs don't play small ball, they have a deep bench they are experienced. They are a playoff team, unlike the Suns. And today it showed the Spurs true skill, by spanking the "best team in the league"...</div> I agree we deserved the loss. We shouldn't have given up, we had a pretty good 1st quarter (dropping 35 points on the best defensive team in the league is no small feat). I was just trying to figure out why the suns gave up and the horrible officiating is the only thing that stands out. Plus I think the suns, as a young team (at the individual level but mainly as a unit) suffer more from the mental block problem of coming to the home arena of a team like the Spurs. Whatever it is, the suns need to find an answer. We need to force the other teams to play our style of ball.
It wasn't Nash's fault that they lost. He made the passes he need, but Q, JJ and Marion weren't making. He also got a taste of his own medicine in Tony Parker, who just tore him up on defense, so you can understand that he would be worn down. Amare, another great game offensively, but you gotta rebound son!
Tony Parker got inside pretty much at will . I was kinda disappointed, it was the first time I saw both teams all season. Spurs played some good D, but I was hoping to see more Duncan and just more of the Suns generally. Stoudemire was good though.
I actually expected something like this, I said it before, in the playoffs against a team like this, the Suns won't be able to hang. The Suns played good, but the defensive hole at PG was exposed by Parker's penetration, and the Spurs defense was able to contain them well enough to pull out for the win.
What i don't get is the Sonics beat the Spurs twice.... And the suns beat the sonics.... Why couldn't the suns beat the Spurs? Its only 1 game out of four meetings...I hope the suns are ready next time.
