Suns-Hornets 92-83

Current record : 5-6
Box score
Highlights video

Last night's home win against the Hornets wasn't the most beautiful one the Suns have pulled off. We fan boys are never content. The Suns have now won four in a row and the past two teams they faced, came in with records of 7-3 and 8-3. Yet, many of us are complaining that the wins haven't been 'impressive'. For lack of a better name and poor imagination, I'll call it championship-hope-itis.

The win against the Hornets was orchestrated by playing good D - the Suns' biggest malady so far. I did not watch the game and its hard to believe, but hey, that's what every report is saying. Kurt Thomas must be the happiest with this win. After all, it was won playing hard-nosed D with ordinary offense, which is what his game is all about. Like I've said before, I'll take an ugly win any day.

The Suns out-rebounded the Hornets 41-40 but had poor O-rebounding. Tyson Chandler alone had more offensive boards than the entire Suns team. That, along with 20 turnovers probably explains the the low FG attempts. We took a paltry 70 shots compared to 85 by the Hornets. Thankfully, the good D helped us get some nice stops and keep their shooting percentage down to 40% (we shot 47%).

Raja Bell seems to be coming out of his shell, scoring 18 and 22 in his past two outings. Thats one of the biggest positives for the Suns. They really need good three point shooting to spread the floor and do their thing. Though it was an ordinary offensive night out for the Suns, they continued their hot shooting from downtown. They sank 10-22 (45%) last night and 13-29 (44.8%) against Golden State.

It was nice to see Boris Diaw take some time off from his croissant-eating binge to play some ball. He did alright -- not great. He shot 8-10, including one from three-point land. He also had 4 asts and 6 rbs. He made a sweet behind-the-back pass from the high post to Raja Bell who was at the left baseline. You've got to check it out.
The only blemish was his eight turnovers. Can't blame him -- its hard to concentrate on basketball when there are better things to do, like eating croissant.
OK. OK. I like Boris a lot -- mainly for his unselfishness and overall demeanor. But dude really needs to get back in shape, and he looks to be on the right path now.

Once more, Amare did not get to play the closing minutes of the game. In D'Antoni's (yeah, he won back his right to carry a D in his name with last night's showing) defense, Amare had a very ordinary showing, scoring nada in the game in 21 minutes. I'm sure Amare was just exhausted from the last few games. He'll turn it around against the Nets.

James Jones laid a monstrously big egg yesterday, after winning back the coach's confidence when he hit a few treys against GSW. That kid is a big head-case and really needs to string a few games together to feel good about himself.

The Nets and Trailblazers are up next. Hope we get the wins to get past the .500 mark.

Jerry Colangelo shows interest in buying Cubs

According to an AP story on ESPN, ex-Suns owner Jerry Colangelo has expressed interest in buying the Chicago Cubs if it does go up for sale.
Said JC:
If in fact the Cubs become available, and that's a big 'if,'
I've stated that I would have great interest. I'm just trying to keep my options open at this point, that's all.

Jerry Colangelo is currently the Chairman of the Phoenix Suns and his term with the team ends this year. He previously owned the Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks at different points in time. SI had interviewed JC a few weeks back and I had covered some of the questions that would be of interest to Suns fans. Here's an excerpt from that post that relates to news of JC buying a new franchise:

• On his next move after relinquishing control of the Suns:
I've kept my eye and ear open to what's going on in basketball and baseball in other cities and franchises.
At this stage I'm just listening.


Good luck Jerry!

Suns vs. Hornets

I'm not watching the Suns-Hornets game but hear that in spite of the lead, the Suns look ordinary out there. They have answered every mini run by the Hornets to keep the 10 point lead in the second half.

The score is now 80-68 Suns with 5:25 to go in the last period.

My prediction for the game on a message board I frequent was 108-100 Suns, with Barbosa being the leading Suns scorer. But Barbosa is out of this game with a sprained left ankle.

Best NBA Blocks

The Nate Robinson block on Yao Ming the other day has been the talk of the NBA the past few days, and deservedly so. I thought I'd post a ootube video of the best NBA blocks. So here you go..


Here's a video of the Tayshaun-Miller block:

Suns-Warriors 113-110

Steve Nash shook off back spasms that forced him to sit out the last two games, to will the Suns to a victory over the super-hot Warriors. Nash had 7 assists in the first nine minutes of the first quarter, as he led the team to a 31-27 lead. The rest of the team responded by showing him how much they need him when they failed to score for the next six minutes Nash was on the bench. The Warriors (who were without their best player Baron Davis) had a 43-31 lead when Nash took the floor to finish the half. The first half ended with the Suns trailing 52-57. Nash already had a double double.

The Suns players were feeling it this night, as they did a good job of sinking open jumper after open jumper. Monta Ellis was huge for the Warriors, wreaking havoc with his jumpers and repeated forays to the hoop. He had 15 first half points. If he continues to get this kind of playing time, he could be one of the front runners for the 'Most Improved Player' award.

Phoenix erased the lead with a crisp third quarter where they outscored the opponents 37-27. In true Suns style, they let the Warriors back in, early in the fourth quarter and the game was a tightrope walk from here on. Raja Bell's jumper started falling in the fourth quarter and he scored 17 points in the period. Barbosa, who's missed crunch time layups in almost all of the last few games bricked both his free throws at the 1:30 mark in the final quarter, when the Suns were ahead 108-107.

There were a rash of lane violations in the last period and the Suns were fortunate to benefit from one such call against the Warriors in the dying moments of the game. With the score tied at 110 each and just four seconds left, Steve Nash buried a 3 point shot to clinch the game for the Suns.

Sure, I'll take an ugly win over a beautiful loss (which is all the Suns have been doing so far) any day. But the Suns have a lot of issues to sort out before they can stretch out and enjoy this win.

The most important lessons:
(1)We need to play some respectable defense. We've lost way too many double digit leads late in games. Your jumpers are not going to fall all the time and when that happens to all players on the team at once, we need to shore up the defense to keep the lead.
(2)Give Amare the ball : our biggest malady so far, has been the inability to close out games. translation - horrible clutch shooting. Amare's one guy in this team who can score every time he gets the ball. Surprisingly, we haven't run the pick and roll with him and Nash, as often as one would've hoped. Further there seems to be an unwillingness on the part of teammates to defer to Amare.
But yeah, Amare is just working his way back into the team and needs to earn his teammates' trust in game situations. I believe this is an issue that will get ironed out over the course of the season.
(3)Give Marion electric shocks every time he launches a jumper. He's been chucking an outrageous six 3 point shots a game so far. That's an insane amount for someone who has a jumper uglier than Sam Cassell.

The string of horribly officiated games for the Suns continued. Against Jazz, Barbosa got called for a phantom 3 pt foul on Okur the other day, while no foul was called when he got hacked on his drive to attempt a potential game winning layup. The Suns got the short end of the stick once more, this time against the Warriors.

Last point to remember : we pulled off the win against a Warriors team that did not have their leader Baron Davis, who has been playing out of his mind so far this season. Take this win as an OK one. Not as big turning point in the season. Not yet.

Suns are now 4-6 and occupy the basement of the Pacific Division.

Some kind of Monster

I've mentioned in a previous post that Emeka Okafor is on my team in a 30 team fantasy league. He's been an absolute beast on the defensive end so far, and had yet another wild night out. This time it was against the Mavericks.

This was his line for the night: 22 Pts, 13 Reb, 3 Ast, 1 Stl, 8 Blk

read, analyze, appreciate.

The pandering goes on..

With the Suns struggling to get their heads out their asses, we take pleasure in the prettier things the NBA has to offer.

Nate Robinson blocks Yao Ming!

As wild and far-fetched as that title sounds, its true. I was watching the Knicks-Rockets game now as Nate -- probably the second shortest guy in the league -- went airborne to block Yao's shot! As Yao raised the ball to make the shot at the low post, lil' Nate leapfrogged to stop the release while whacking Yao in the eye as he completed the swat.

Probably not as great as the Tayshaun-Miller block, but definitely one that will be in highlight reels for a long time now. Remember where you read it first!

Update : Link to the video of the block.

Dictator Stern at it again

Looks like David Stern is running out of ways to mess with the NBA. In his latest move to assert his authority, Sternbot apparently wants to remove all NBA videos from the internet. Huh? This is exactly what happens when you give a pint-sized lawyer the chance to control a league of monster athletes. Presently, only hoopsworld is carrying this story, so I don't know how true this is. But hey, you can never have enough reasons to hate Stern. [full story at hoopsworld]

I will post on how to download videos from youtube, google vid etc. in a few hours, so you can download what you want before Stern's minions go to work. In any case, Stern can do diddly squat to services like bittorrent. And there's always the porn versions of youtube! Who would think of looking there? Imagine Stern's underlings dutifully scouring through porntubes looking for NBA highlights!

Hottest Dunk EVER

Talk about feeling orgasmic after watching a dunk.

Emeka gets Hakeem's mojo!

If the video in this post started playing as soon as you opened this page, and it is annoying you, there are two things you can do : (1) stop the video for now (2) give this blog link to everyone you know, so I get excessive traffic and blogger cancels my account.

I'm in a fantasy league (on nba.com) along with other guys from this Suns forum I live in. This must be the most scrub-filled fantasy league, ever. By scrubs, I mean the players -- not the GMs..we're a bunch of frikkin' studs. There are 30 (yes 30!!) teams in this league.

Here is my team (in decreasing order of scrubness... or is it scrubbosity?) -
CP3, Emeka Okafor, Mike Miller(we have a 1 chick per team rule), Barry, Sean May
Brevin Knight, Anthony Parker, DeShawn Stevenson, Bostjan Nachbar, Marvin Williams (injured)

Since Barry got good playing time last week, I started him ahead of Parker. He responded with 0 pts in 5 mins last night. I can't start Brevin Knight since he doesn't have G eligibility. I'm trying to trade him for a starter.

Apart from CP, the only guy who has been putting up big numbers for me is Emeka. The guy has played like a beast this season. He's averaging 19.1 pts, 12.7 boards, 4.0 blks so far. For a guy without hops, 4 bpg (even if its just 7 games) is huge. So I looked around and found some dirt on this. Apparently, Emeka attended Olajuwon's inaugural big man camp this offseason. Olajuwon had spent a week helping Emeka last year. This time, Ndudi Ebi and a few others joined him to learn from the only player to win DPOY, regular season MVP and Finals MVP -- all in the same season.

My guess is quite a bit of Hakeem's skills rubbed off on Emeka. Here's a short video of the camp from nba.com. Here's the link, if the video doesn't work in your browser.

Thank you Emeka!

UPDATE: Emeka finally got some love from the Godfather of hoops blogging - Henry Abbott at truehoop. Check out his post on Emeka's past 4 nights out.

Longoria-Beyonce movie not happening

Sorry to break this to you guys, but Eva has denied that she and Beyonce are going to act in a lesbian flick directed by Sofia Coppola.
Eva told People magazine: "Believe me, I would love to work with Beyonce one day. She's so talented."

Agreed Eva -- we too would love to see you work closely with Beyonce.
Make it happen. And soon.

a Turk, a Dirk and a jerk

The Spurs are easily one of the more boring teams to watch in the league. In the unlikely event that there is a Spurs fan reading this, I also admit that your team is the best right now.
*grrrrr...*
But this guy Brent Barry and his quips are undeniably entertaining.

I've been wanting to write about this for a while but it kept slipping my mind. On Spurs' opening night, I watched a clip of Barry conducting a spoof talk show, along with Tony Parker. It was just a brief clip but was funny as hell. I did a quick search and found an account of the evening on MySA.com.

The highlights:

•Tim Duncan played a Crucian shaman, who, like the old Johnny Carson character, Carnac the Magnificent, could mysteriously guess the answer to a question in a sealed envelope.
Parker to Timmy: Hedo Turkoglu, Nowitzki and P.J. Carlesimo.
Timmy's reply : A Turk, a Dirk and a jerk?

•Bruce Bowen playing a floppy-haired cowboy lawyer for the law office of Bowen & Bowen. Bowen's character, patterned after the local Wayne Wright commercials, used the slogan, "I Will Defend You."
One of the testimonials for Bowen's firm was from a Ray A.: "I'll say this much — he's cheap."

•A slide show of Beno Udrih's training-camp trip to France. Every picture showed him sitting and, as Parker told the crowd, "doing nothing."261262

•A "Behind the Music" episode for grunge hero Fabricio Oberto. Manu Ginobili played Oberto's manager/butcher. Sean Elliott was a crazed, jerry-curled fan named Jermaine.

(Oberto and grunge? haha)
(Ginobili playing a butcher? how apt!)

A few other Brent Barry quotes come to mind:
•"I'd give my right hand to be ambidextrous"

•"I was going to wear a T-shirt that said 'White Men CAN Jump', but I didn't want to burst anyone's bubble." (after Barry won the slam dunk competition)

Combined with the fact that he kissed (eek!) David Stern, as Bill Walton would say "Barry is the funniest guy in the history of this great sport".

PS : Talking of Parker, did you guys know that Eva Longoria and Beyonce are going to star together in a movie as lesbian lovers?
woot!
I first read of this on benchrenaldo and thought it was a rumor. But Conan O'Brien mentioned it on his show tonight, so I guess this is for real. Now to work on getting that ugly image of Parker kissing Jay Z, out of my head. ugh!

Memo to Scoop : stick to 'street', don't try 'funny'

Scoop Jackson - the jive talkin' homie from Page 2 is at it again, only this time he sounds less street, more stupid.

His lines appear in italics:

•They're record is a surprise, but …
Huh?
Grammar 101 for Scoop :
they're = they are
you say "their record", not "they are record"

•The Suns are not officially saying anything, but Steve's mythical powers didn't leave with his haircut.
Did you say mythical ? I appreciate you trying to be funny and tying in a joke about his new hairdo but what the hell are you trying to convey? You do know mythical means imaginary, right? anyone want to help me understand scoop-speak?
Actually, an anonymous commenter drove it into my bonehead that the word mythical here, means having qualities suitable to a myth and therefore is a correct usage.
D'oh! Sorry Scoop.

• Raja Bell and Leandro Barbosa are caught up; they think they are stars and have gotten as shot happy as John Starks. They have forgotten that on any other team in the NBA, they'd be All-Stars, but they aren't on any other team. They need reminders of who they really are.

hundred bucks to anyone who explains that second line to me. most nebulous!

•If you found Scoopie stupid so far, listen to this:
Basketball translation: the West's version of the Knicks … with a worse record.

damn! why you trippin' on my team man? Brother Scoop -- I feel ya' but I think you're reachin' here.

Bottom line to Scoop -- Borrow some analogies from Bill Simmons.....stupid as some of them are, at least they're (this is where you use 'they're') funny.

Jack McCallum left a comment!

I wrote about the book on the Suns by Jack McCallum in my post entitled "Seven Seconds or Less" on Nov 7th.

Well, guess what? Mc-frikkin-Callum read this blog this morning and left a comment.OK, OK. It must've been his agent, but who cares -- the comment was left in the name McCallum. I know for a fact that its not a hoax because I looked through my site stats and right about the time that he left a comment, there were a few hits from Time Inc's domain -- they own Simon and Schuster, which is the company thats publishing the book.

Here's the link to the comment. This is what he had to say:

Hey, thanks for the advance pub on my book.
I'll be in the Valley of the Sun on Dec. 2, a Saturday, signing copies at the Barnes & Noble on 90th St. in Scottsdale. It goes from 2 to 3:30 p.m.
"Seven Seconds or Less" makes a great Christmas gift. (Then again, so does a tie.)
Please stop by, preferably with the twenty-four bucks, but, even without it, we can talk anyway.

Jack McCallum

No problem Jack! Small problem -- I live in central NJ. You gonna be doing book signings somewhere around here?

Woot!

Reminder -- Seven Seconds or Less comes out tomorrow

A quick update on McCallum's book on the Suns. Its due out tomorrow, so those of you looking to buy a copy -- go grab one or reserve it online.

I've been hearing some controversial and contradicting news on it. On one hand, there have been reports that the book hints at Amare being a negative presence on the team and stuff. The Suns and Coach however, have said that McCallum has presented a balanced portrait of the situation in the team.

My feeling is that some random journalists must have read a few sections here and there and come to a conclusion based on that.

I'll leave you with a short segment from last year's teaser on SI:

When Iavaroni demonstrates the way he will teach how to fight through picks, Mike says that he wants Nash to do something different. "Steve has to keep his hands up to ward off [screeners] before they come at him," says D'Antoni. "I'd rather see him push off and go behind the screen than try to squeeze through."

"You're right," says Gentry. "They come after him then."

Wonder what they do in the defense drills these days. In the SA game, Parker and Oberto (of all people!) killed the Suns with the pick-and-roll, over and over again. The Suns didn't seem to have the slightest clue on how to stop the P&R.

Nash makes toilet on team

I'm a freaking insomniac and literally stayed up all night -- its 6:40 am in NJ now and the best part is I don't drink coffee or consume caffeine in any form. From what I recall, I must've read at least 20 NBA blogs and 40 articles on sports websites since midnight...but sure as hell, all of it seems like a blur. This last piece by Jerry Brown I read in EVT is one that stood out probably because it has to do with Nash and Antoni -- my favorite and (currently) un-favorite Suns respectively.

Nash mentions that he expected this lousy start and suggests the training camp in Europe was a stupid idea. This quote says it all:
I came into camp in better shape than I was when I came back from Italy

Coach Antoni -- who lost the right to carry 'D' in this blog -- has been in my doghouse (yeah, I'm brutal like that) for a long time because of his inability to get the team to play even imaginary defense. He's never shown the ability to adapt to game situations or run plays without Nash on the floor. Heck, does this guy even have a play book? Anyway, listening to this line from da MP3 further tarnishes my image of Antoni as a coach:
“(Coach) Mike (D’Antoni) gives us a lot of freedom. We don’t have to be in the gym all day long. But that puts the responsibility on each guy to make sure you are prepared, that you do your work. You could see we were behind. And when that happens, it makes everything harder."

I don't blame you if you're pissed at Antoni now. This next line is sure to crack you up though.
Nash went out of his way to compliment the players he thought were working hard and tempered his praise for those he thought needed to catch up. Any guesses as to who the hard workers were? Thomas, Leandro Barbosa and Pat Burke. hah!
All you Burke haters can eat crow now. I know he didn't play well against Memphis but I have a strong feeling he did that to save his best moves for the playoffs. He could be our Robert Horry this season. (I actually typed that with a straight face though it wasn't my intention -- thats how freaking sleep deprived I am!)

This is the link to the full story:
Nash: Suns came into season out of shape

An interesting Antoni quote I came across elsewhere..on whether Raja will be affected by the stricter officiating:
"Raja's fine, because he'll get thrown out, anyway. It's either a carjacking or nothing. He doesn't have any petty thief [in him]."

Isiah Thomas gone wild

I have received a few quotes for the proposed hit on Manu Flopinobili. Some of the respondents have offered to break Manu's beak for a lifetime of free food at Taco Bell. With Raja being a spokesman for Taco Bell, it shouldn't be too hard to arrange something.

In related 'ugly news' Isiah Thomas (IT) went at Bruce Bowen (BB) last night after the latter stuck his feet under Jamal Crawford (JC) even as he was landing after a jump shot. I was watching the game on MSG and the verbal exchange was along these lines:

IT to BB : Stop sticking your foot under my player.
IT to JC : Next time he does that, break his feet!

Poppovich to IT : Stop talking to my player..
IT retorts : Ask your player to stop sticking his foot under my players.

It turned ugly after this, as Poppo and Isiah spewed venom at each other (the side story to this being that Poppo is best friends with Larry Brown and was Best Man at his wedding). Thomas was ready to rumble as he was restrained by Asst Coach Herb Williams.

Both Isiah and Bruce Bowen were rightfully honored with technicals, but Poppovich got away scot free -- just like whiny ole' Timmy D almost always does. Isiah though went up to Poppovich at the end of the game and kissed and made up. I don't know why (because-I-freaking hate-Poppovich-and-don't-give-a-rat's-ass-about- IT) but I found it to be a nice gesture from Isiah.

Lets leave these geezers aside and look at what can be done to Bruce Bowen, the Foot Monster. Its one thing when a big-footed klutz like Shaq (maybe accidentally) undercuts someone (read RJ) but Bowen has done this for the second time in a week's span. He did the same to Stevie Franchise at the Garden last week, sending him out with a sprained ankle which he still hasn't recovered from. Stu Jackson reviewed the play but took no action.

With Manu's elbow-dig that injured Raja Bell's rib cartilage, that makes three attempts at injuring an opponent, two of which were successful -- all withing 2 weeks of play! Vince Carter and Ray Allen have already spoken out by Bowen's foot-sliding tendency and dirty play in general.

I know David Stern has this blog on his favorites, so let me talk directly to him:
Listen, you 4 foot-litigious-bitch -- go ahead, feed your Napoleon's complex by lording over these giants and changing the ball so it feels like your own...but if you turn a blind eye to these asSAssins, you're gonna regret it -- I'll make sure you do!

btw, accepting offers to break Bowen's foot now..

In his own words: Jerry Colangelo

Jerry Colangelo, who has been with the Suns in various capacities since 1968 is in his last year with the organization. Don't feel bad for him though. If you recall, he cashed in $400M selling the organization to Robert Saver (couldn't resist the shot at foamy finger) in 2004.
Sports Illustrated spoke to him recently and the result is an interesting read. [full story]

Highlights

• On son Bryan Colangelo's departure as Suns GM last season to become Toronto Raptors president:

"When the sale took place it was an almost inevitable possibility that Bryan might not be part of the future of the Phoenix Suns, because new ownership has the right to maintain or change management. Bryan and I discussed that before the sale, and he encouraged me to do what's right for the family and don't worry about him, he was going to be OK. He was right.

Which brings me to the question -- why the hell give Antoni the added responsibility of GM? The dude doesn't have time to get his team to do basic stuff like boxing out or defending..why entrust him with more than he can chew.
Also, I've always felt that there needs to be a higher power to keep tabs on Antoni's tendency to play smurf-ball. There needs to be a guy who can temper Antoni's urge to stockpile swingmen, which is exactly what he's done with the Suns now -- James Jones, Jumaine Jones, Jalen Rose, Piatkowski and Diaw.

• On how he pushed through the rules changes:

"I'll take the full blame or responsibility for that one. David Stern and I were meeting in New York and I shared with him my concern for the game at that time. I felt the game had lost its appeal and allure, and if it was starting to affect me then that was a serious issue. I had some very specific ideas about how to quicken the game, and David said, 'Put together a committee and do what needs be done.' Normally this kind of thing would take place within the competition and rules committee, and the coaches would discuss these things to ad infinitum. So it was my strong opinion that this was not going to be done by democratic opinion.

This guy is considered one of the front runners for Stern's office once he leaves. Will the NBA get no respite from these dictators?

Maybe its good that he made rule changes to make the game more exciting but this same guy is in charge of USA basketball and must be aware of the completely different rules in FIBA. If I recall correctly, the defense in FIBA is much more physical and allows hand checking. So basically, in making the rule changes JC-2004 screwed 'JC-2006', who is struggling to get Team USA to contend.

• On the rule permitting zone defenses:
We cleaned up play in the middle, speeded up play by changing the 10-second halfcourt rule to eight seconds -- we almost went to seven seconds, by the way -- and bringing more emphasis on shooting the ball and smarts.

• On his next move after relinquishing control of the Suns:
I've kept my eye and ear open to what's going on in basketball and baseball in other cities and franchises.
At this stage I'm just listening.

Nutslap the Suns players

This is what Coach Antoni needs to do with each of the Suns players on the eve of the next game. This just might help get them pumped up and take their anger out on the opposition. But knowing the Suns, they might cry for while and continue playing 'like cupcakes'.



M