Solid D
11-19-2005, 09:48 AM
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA111905.1D.BKNsuns.spurs.advance.212cbc1d.html
Web Posted: 11/19/2005 12:00 AM CST
Mike Monroe
Express-News Staff Writer
When last the Phoenix Suns played the Spurs at the SBC Center, power forward Amare Stoudemire punctuated a Suns victory in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals by blocking a Tim Duncan dunk attempt.
Despite the Spurs' 4-1 domination of that series, Stoudemire's block became one of its most memorable plays. Combined with his scoring average of 37.0 points for the five games, it underscored his status as one of the few players for whom Duncan has no good defensive answer.
With Most Valuable Player Steve Nash running coach Mike D'Antoni's breakneck offense to perfection and teaming with Stoudemire on nearly unstoppable pick-and-rolls, it seemed the Suns were primed to be the Spurs' chief challenger in the Western Conference for years.
Five months later, the Suns, who return tonight to the SBC Center, are just trying to keep their heads above water until February.
The Suns' roster is dramatically different from the one that frightened the Spurs in June.
Stoudemire is on the shelf until February, victim of a knee injury that required the sort of microfracture surgery that turned Chris Webber into a jump shooter and effectively ended Penny Hardaway's run as an annual All-Star.
Starting guard Joe Johnson is gone, opting to sign an offer sheet in Atlanta that forced the Suns to negotiate a sign-and-trade deal with the Hawks.
Starting forward Quentin Richardson is in New York, traded for center Kurt Thomas.
Phoenix has dropped four of its first six home games. Even D'Antoni, one of the most positive of thinkers, frets that his new lineup reacts to crunch time "like we're waiting for a piano to fall on our heads."
D'Antoni shoulders the blame for some of the Suns' difficulties thus far, saying he hasn't yet discovered the right player combinations, especially at crunch time.
"If you watch us play now, for 45 minutes we're a very good team," D'Antoni said. "We just haven't learned the right combination to put on the floor — who we are, what our identity is. That's on me. We'll figure that out."
For all his team's early struggles, D'Antoni remains upbeat.
"A couple of months from now," he says, "you're going to like how this story turns out."
The Suns' story seemed like a feel-good Hollywood script last season. Playing D'Antoni's up-tempo style, the Suns put the fun back in basketball in Arizona. They averaged 110.4 points, the highest average since the Orlando Magic, with Shaquille O'Neal and pre-injury Hardaway, put up 110.9 points per game in 1995-96. Their margin over the Sacramento Kings was 6.7 points per game, the biggest differential between No.1 and No.2 in 22 seasons.
And the Suns had the NBA's best regular season record, 62-20.
But the story did not produce the NBA title that would have made for a truly happy ending. That was because the Suns could not get past the Spurs.
Not surprisingly, every Suns off-season roster move began with the same premise: toughening up in order to better compete against the Spurs in another playoff series.
"The Spurs are our mountain to climb," D'Antoni said after the Richardson deal. "Everything we've done has been predicated on trying to get over that mountain."
The tinkering began with the Richardson-for-Thomas trade. The Suns signed free agent Raja Bell, one of the league's best defenders of shooting guards. Clearly, they had Manu Ginobili foremost in mind.
But the tinkering went awry when Johnson signed an offer sheet in Atlanta and Suns owner Robert Sarver opted for a sign-and-trade deal that netted Boris Diaw and conditional future draft picks, rather than match the offer.
Then, Stoudemire went down three days into training camp.
So the Suns who play the Spurs tonight are a far cry from the Suns of June. D'Antoni is doing his best to hold things together until, and if, Stoudemire returns. His approach is simple: Keep running, and keep scoring. The Suns have the highest scoring average in the league through seven games: 107.2 points.
"We know who we are," D'Antoni said. "We're going to run and put up points."
But without Stoudemire, everything the Suns do is more difficult, and that includes running and scoring.
"The Steve Nash-Amare Stoudemire one-two punch won us a lot of games last year," D'Antoni said. "We knew what we were going to do. We had our identity. You had to stop it, and no one stopped it. Even against San Antonio, Amare averaged 37. That was a sure thing that we had, and then we fit all the other pieces around it. When Amare went down, we didn't have that sure thing.
"Everything we're doing is not working out right now. It worked out unbelievably last year. It's going to take a while to shift gears with this group."
The Suns' group this season still has MVP Nash running the show, which is enough for Spurs coach Gregg Popovich to express appropriate respect.
"Any team that is run by Steve Nash is going to be a heck of a team," Popovich said. "I don't care if it's the Budweiser League."
Nash hasn't yet been driven to drink, but he admits the Suns' halting start has been bothersome. It would have been difficult, he said, assimilating as many new players as the Suns added even if Stoudemire had remained healthy. Without him, it has been much tougher.
"We're a new team," Nash said. "We have very little experience together, very little continuity and familiarity from last season. It's going to take us time. It's very frustrating and disappointing, but it's inevitable, I suppose."
Nash still leads the NBA in assists at 11.6 a game, but no Suns player ranks in the Top 30 in scoring. Last season, Stoudemire finished fifth in scoring, at 26.0 per game. Without him, every other aspect of the Suns' offense has become more difficult.
"With the group we have, and what we've shown so far, if we continue to work each day and come together as a team, there is no reason we can't be above-.500 when Amare comes back," Nash said. "The goal is more than being above-.500. The goal is to be a better and better team each day, and if that happens, I think we'll be pretty good, even without Amare.
"Obviously, if he comes back, we'll be grateful."
Shawn Marion, the Suns' other All-Star forward, bristles a bit at the suggestion the Suns are biding their time, awaiting Stoudemire's return.
"Everybody is looking at it like, 'What do you do until Amare comes back?'" Marion said. "Amare is out. We can't keep talking about this. We love him to death, but we've got to get our continuity going."
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Web Posted: 11/19/2005 12:00 AM CST
Mike Monroe
Express-News Staff Writer
When last the Phoenix Suns played the Spurs at the SBC Center, power forward Amare Stoudemire punctuated a Suns victory in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals by blocking a Tim Duncan dunk attempt.
Despite the Spurs' 4-1 domination of that series, Stoudemire's block became one of its most memorable plays. Combined with his scoring average of 37.0 points for the five games, it underscored his status as one of the few players for whom Duncan has no good defensive answer.
With Most Valuable Player Steve Nash running coach Mike D'Antoni's breakneck offense to perfection and teaming with Stoudemire on nearly unstoppable pick-and-rolls, it seemed the Suns were primed to be the Spurs' chief challenger in the Western Conference for years.
Five months later, the Suns, who return tonight to the SBC Center, are just trying to keep their heads above water until February.
The Suns' roster is dramatically different from the one that frightened the Spurs in June.
Stoudemire is on the shelf until February, victim of a knee injury that required the sort of microfracture surgery that turned Chris Webber into a jump shooter and effectively ended Penny Hardaway's run as an annual All-Star.
Starting guard Joe Johnson is gone, opting to sign an offer sheet in Atlanta that forced the Suns to negotiate a sign-and-trade deal with the Hawks.
Starting forward Quentin Richardson is in New York, traded for center Kurt Thomas.
Phoenix has dropped four of its first six home games. Even D'Antoni, one of the most positive of thinkers, frets that his new lineup reacts to crunch time "like we're waiting for a piano to fall on our heads."
D'Antoni shoulders the blame for some of the Suns' difficulties thus far, saying he hasn't yet discovered the right player combinations, especially at crunch time.
"If you watch us play now, for 45 minutes we're a very good team," D'Antoni said. "We just haven't learned the right combination to put on the floor — who we are, what our identity is. That's on me. We'll figure that out."
For all his team's early struggles, D'Antoni remains upbeat.
"A couple of months from now," he says, "you're going to like how this story turns out."
The Suns' story seemed like a feel-good Hollywood script last season. Playing D'Antoni's up-tempo style, the Suns put the fun back in basketball in Arizona. They averaged 110.4 points, the highest average since the Orlando Magic, with Shaquille O'Neal and pre-injury Hardaway, put up 110.9 points per game in 1995-96. Their margin over the Sacramento Kings was 6.7 points per game, the biggest differential between No.1 and No.2 in 22 seasons.
And the Suns had the NBA's best regular season record, 62-20.
But the story did not produce the NBA title that would have made for a truly happy ending. That was because the Suns could not get past the Spurs.
Not surprisingly, every Suns off-season roster move began with the same premise: toughening up in order to better compete against the Spurs in another playoff series.
"The Spurs are our mountain to climb," D'Antoni said after the Richardson deal. "Everything we've done has been predicated on trying to get over that mountain."
The tinkering began with the Richardson-for-Thomas trade. The Suns signed free agent Raja Bell, one of the league's best defenders of shooting guards. Clearly, they had Manu Ginobili foremost in mind.
But the tinkering went awry when Johnson signed an offer sheet in Atlanta and Suns owner Robert Sarver opted for a sign-and-trade deal that netted Boris Diaw and conditional future draft picks, rather than match the offer.
Then, Stoudemire went down three days into training camp.
So the Suns who play the Spurs tonight are a far cry from the Suns of June. D'Antoni is doing his best to hold things together until, and if, Stoudemire returns. His approach is simple: Keep running, and keep scoring. The Suns have the highest scoring average in the league through seven games: 107.2 points.
"We know who we are," D'Antoni said. "We're going to run and put up points."
But without Stoudemire, everything the Suns do is more difficult, and that includes running and scoring.
"The Steve Nash-Amare Stoudemire one-two punch won us a lot of games last year," D'Antoni said. "We knew what we were going to do. We had our identity. You had to stop it, and no one stopped it. Even against San Antonio, Amare averaged 37. That was a sure thing that we had, and then we fit all the other pieces around it. When Amare went down, we didn't have that sure thing.
"Everything we're doing is not working out right now. It worked out unbelievably last year. It's going to take a while to shift gears with this group."
The Suns' group this season still has MVP Nash running the show, which is enough for Spurs coach Gregg Popovich to express appropriate respect.
"Any team that is run by Steve Nash is going to be a heck of a team," Popovich said. "I don't care if it's the Budweiser League."
Nash hasn't yet been driven to drink, but he admits the Suns' halting start has been bothersome. It would have been difficult, he said, assimilating as many new players as the Suns added even if Stoudemire had remained healthy. Without him, it has been much tougher.
"We're a new team," Nash said. "We have very little experience together, very little continuity and familiarity from last season. It's going to take us time. It's very frustrating and disappointing, but it's inevitable, I suppose."
Nash still leads the NBA in assists at 11.6 a game, but no Suns player ranks in the Top 30 in scoring. Last season, Stoudemire finished fifth in scoring, at 26.0 per game. Without him, every other aspect of the Suns' offense has become more difficult.
"With the group we have, and what we've shown so far, if we continue to work each day and come together as a team, there is no reason we can't be above-.500 when Amare comes back," Nash said. "The goal is more than being above-.500. The goal is to be a better and better team each day, and if that happens, I think we'll be pretty good, even without Amare.
"Obviously, if he comes back, we'll be grateful."
Shawn Marion, the Suns' other All-Star forward, bristles a bit at the suggestion the Suns are biding their time, awaiting Stoudemire's return.
"Everybody is looking at it like, 'What do you do until Amare comes back?'" Marion said. "Amare is out. We can't keep talking about this. We love him to death, but we've got to get our continuity going."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[email protected]