Perimeter defense? Non-existent. Transition defense? MIA. Rotational defense? Zilch. Closing out shooters? Rarely. Result? 136 points allowed. But at least the fans got their pizza. There isn’t a team in the NBA that has had success trying to out-gun the Suns, so why Phoenix East thought that playing pedantic defense and trying to match the Suns’ offense was a good strategy is a little puzzling, especially a day after Indiana failed doing the same. Granted, it’s not easy to defend Phoenix but at least you could try? Right? Even the posters on RealGM came up with better defensive plans than what was showcased tonight. We did nothing to make life tougher for the Suns, it was almost like we approached the Charlotte and Phoenix games the exact same way and just thought we’d meet the same result.
There was a thought of having Jamario Moon try to guard Nash and maybe give him some space thus taking away his drive while still contesting the jumper. By no means does this guarantee success but it’s still worth a shot. It’s better than doing NOTHING because doing NOTHING gets you NOTHING and that’s what we got on the defensive end last night. Nash didn’t even break a sweat when he was blowing by Calderon, around Delfino, challenging Rasho and kicking it out Raja Bell for three after three. It was almost like the Raps were pylons in a practice drill. Phoenix doesn’t even care if you score because they know they’ll get those points back in less than 24 seconds and just based on the law of averages you’ll end up missing more than them.
Although it was evident that Sam didn’t provide much instruction or strategy about guarding their shooters, a ton of it is common sense. You can’t give Barbosa and Bell space when they’ve already hit 8 threes between them, it’s not that complicated. It would be somewhat acceptable if our strategy was to shut down Amare and let the shooters get theirs but that wasn’t the case either, Stoudamire was 9-11 for 25 points. So that begs the question, what area of Phoenix’s game did we try to defensively focus on? You can’t approach guarding Raymond Felton and guarding Steve Nash in the same manner, that’s suicide!
TJ Ford (27 pts) appears to be 100% healthy and playing like his old self, although his contribution had little effect on the outcome of things today, at least he got a good run in and hopefully can be a factor against Boston. Even Jose had a great offensive game with 14 points and 9 assists but it’s our PG combo’s defense on Nash that’s the talking point, not their meaningless scoring games. As alluded to before, you can only play defense if you have a defensive plan. One can’t just step out on the court with the order of “D him up” and expect success. So Sam finally played TJ and Jose together for a stretch in the third quarter and met with some success which made me wonder what the criteria needs to be for those two to play together. After some deep thinking it’s evident that the only circumstance which allows for it is being down 19 in the third against Phoenix at home. It makes sense because we’ve been playing teams all year where those two on the court could’ve create matchup problems but Sam has never resorted to it so why now? Another mystery yet unsolved.
But let’s put things in perspective, we’re missing Bosh and Bargnani and were destined to lose this game so there aren’t any surprises here. Let’s move on and talk about something more interesting.
I like Steve Nash a lot but can we not spend the entire 2 1/2 hours praising each and every aspect of his game – it gets a little sickening. Chuck Swirsky, Leo Rautins, Dan Majerle, Rod Black and Brian Heaney all took turns with Leo finishing off Nash after a highly invigorating climax. Even thought Nash is probably one of the most grounded and overall nice athletes of this generation, it’s still somewhat nauseating to see the love-fest while Raja Bell’s hitting 25 footers. BTW, what is up with Black and Heaney running around the ACC giving stupid little reports in different little sections of the arena? Who’s idea was that and why? Why???
I have another thing I’d like to get off my chest and it concerns the Raptors Dance-Pak. Overall a nice enough set of T & A with the exception of one girl, and she is Bianca. IMHO, not satisfactory. The official photo on the right has clearly undergone several rounds of Photoshop edits so don’t be fooled by it. You gotta see this thing live.
It’s Boston next and Bosh looks doubtful for the game so to expect something out of that one might be too much, but the Raps have surprised us in the past. Thanks for reading, grab the feed.