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.