duncan228
04-26-2008, 03:47 PM
http://www.azcentral.com/sports/suns/articles/2008/04/25/20080425suns.html
Suns on brink of playoff elimination
by Paul Coro
The Suns' spirit and championship hopes are looking about as good as the storage cabinet door on Amaré Stoudemire's locker.
The door was missing, with only a strip of wood around the hinges - roughly the same shred of a chance Phoenix has to survive this first-round series after a 115-99 loss gave San Antonio a 3-0 lead and a viselike grip on the Suns.
Phoenix went all season as the only NBA team to not lose three games in a row. When it mattered most, these three Suns losses have left them waiting for last rites. The visitors in black were dressed more appropriately for the ceremony than the orange crush of Suns fans that was booing by the third quarter.
A Valley swept over with enthusiasm when Shaquille O'Neal arrived in February is on the brink of seeing its Suns swept by the Spurs, who have won five consecutive playoff games against Phoenix. No NBA playoff team has rallied from a 3-0 deficit.
A loss on Sunday - or Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday - would mean Phoenix's third playoff exit to San Antonio in the past four years.
The Suns' theory that it should shut off San Antonio's role players and see whether the Spurs' big three could outscore them is exploding in their faces. Tony Parker handed out 12 assists and scored 41 points, a career-best total in regular season or postseason play, and did it primarily with jumpers after riddling Phoenix with drives in the first two games. Manu Ginobili (20 points) and Tim Duncan (23 points) still scored above their season averages, too.
"It's not working, is it?" Suns guard Steve Nash said. "So we should probably adjust."
The Suns keep making the Spurs look like something more than the NBA's third-lowest-scoring offense of the regular season. With the season essentially on the line, Phoenix could not respond like the other playoff teams facing 2-0 holes have. Instead, they either showed little home-court pride or little defensive ability to give up 61 points in the first half and 56.1 percent shooting for the game. It started innocently enough because the Suns were keeping the Spurs on the perimeter, but Parker hit his first four jump shots and the Spurs scored on their first nine possessions for an 18-8 lead.
The pick-and-roll defense continued to be decimated, isolating Nash, O'Neal and Stoudemire repeatedly for scores. D'Antoni was reaching for anything, even the zone defense he hates to implement.
"Tony Parker was a maniac out there offensively," Stoudemire said. "He was scoring the ball from all different angles. We tried to take out the king (Duncan) but when playing a game of chess, there's always that queen that steps up and hits you from the blind side."
It looked like it could not be any easier for Parker to dice up the Suns in the first two games, when he scored 40 of his 58 points in the paint. But the Spurs point guard, against whom Phoenix once used Shawn Marion to defend, had his best game yet with mainly jumpers and floaters.
Everything that was easy for Parker was hard for Nash, who was hounded by Bruce Bowen.
"It was very frustrating for me to feel out of control," Nash said. "I felt like an outsider most of the night."
Between Parker's scoring deluge and the deflating, rhythm-breaking employment of Hack-a-Shaq, the Suns never found an offensive beat to counter the Spurs.
"That's the best I've seen someone play," Suns coach Mike D'Antoni said.
The Suns trailed 61-47 by halftime and it grew only worse in the second half, when the Spurs used the space Phoenix provided on pick-and-roll defense, zones and switches to knock down shots. Parker, Duncan and Ginobili made 33 of 52 shots (63.5 percent).
Aside from one Leandro Barbosa fourth-quarter flurry that helped cut it to 13, there was about as much chance of Phoenix winning Game 3 as there is with the series now.
"It's going to be hard to bounce back from a 0-3 situation that's highly impossible but we're going to give it a shot," Stoudemire said.
Suns on brink of playoff elimination
by Paul Coro
The Suns' spirit and championship hopes are looking about as good as the storage cabinet door on Amaré Stoudemire's locker.
The door was missing, with only a strip of wood around the hinges - roughly the same shred of a chance Phoenix has to survive this first-round series after a 115-99 loss gave San Antonio a 3-0 lead and a viselike grip on the Suns.
Phoenix went all season as the only NBA team to not lose three games in a row. When it mattered most, these three Suns losses have left them waiting for last rites. The visitors in black were dressed more appropriately for the ceremony than the orange crush of Suns fans that was booing by the third quarter.
A Valley swept over with enthusiasm when Shaquille O'Neal arrived in February is on the brink of seeing its Suns swept by the Spurs, who have won five consecutive playoff games against Phoenix. No NBA playoff team has rallied from a 3-0 deficit.
A loss on Sunday - or Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday - would mean Phoenix's third playoff exit to San Antonio in the past four years.
The Suns' theory that it should shut off San Antonio's role players and see whether the Spurs' big three could outscore them is exploding in their faces. Tony Parker handed out 12 assists and scored 41 points, a career-best total in regular season or postseason play, and did it primarily with jumpers after riddling Phoenix with drives in the first two games. Manu Ginobili (20 points) and Tim Duncan (23 points) still scored above their season averages, too.
"It's not working, is it?" Suns guard Steve Nash said. "So we should probably adjust."
The Suns keep making the Spurs look like something more than the NBA's third-lowest-scoring offense of the regular season. With the season essentially on the line, Phoenix could not respond like the other playoff teams facing 2-0 holes have. Instead, they either showed little home-court pride or little defensive ability to give up 61 points in the first half and 56.1 percent shooting for the game. It started innocently enough because the Suns were keeping the Spurs on the perimeter, but Parker hit his first four jump shots and the Spurs scored on their first nine possessions for an 18-8 lead.
The pick-and-roll defense continued to be decimated, isolating Nash, O'Neal and Stoudemire repeatedly for scores. D'Antoni was reaching for anything, even the zone defense he hates to implement.
"Tony Parker was a maniac out there offensively," Stoudemire said. "He was scoring the ball from all different angles. We tried to take out the king (Duncan) but when playing a game of chess, there's always that queen that steps up and hits you from the blind side."
It looked like it could not be any easier for Parker to dice up the Suns in the first two games, when he scored 40 of his 58 points in the paint. But the Spurs point guard, against whom Phoenix once used Shawn Marion to defend, had his best game yet with mainly jumpers and floaters.
Everything that was easy for Parker was hard for Nash, who was hounded by Bruce Bowen.
"It was very frustrating for me to feel out of control," Nash said. "I felt like an outsider most of the night."
Between Parker's scoring deluge and the deflating, rhythm-breaking employment of Hack-a-Shaq, the Suns never found an offensive beat to counter the Spurs.
"That's the best I've seen someone play," Suns coach Mike D'Antoni said.
The Suns trailed 61-47 by halftime and it grew only worse in the second half, when the Spurs used the space Phoenix provided on pick-and-roll defense, zones and switches to knock down shots. Parker, Duncan and Ginobili made 33 of 52 shots (63.5 percent).
Aside from one Leandro Barbosa fourth-quarter flurry that helped cut it to 13, there was about as much chance of Phoenix winning Game 3 as there is with the series now.
"It's going to be hard to bounce back from a 0-3 situation that's highly impossible but we're going to give it a shot," Stoudemire said.