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Diaw is a pussy that can't be counted on from game to game. He had his one good performance and can go back to sucking now.
The biggest difference was that in Game 3 nearly all of Parker's shots were uncontested. Parker probably makes 80-90% of those shots in the practice gym, so I wasn't surprised he went off like that.
Game 4 the Suns as a team made more of an effort to pressure the ball and it made all the difference for them. When they put forth the energy and hustle like they did today the Suns are a tough team to beat. Fortunately for the Spurs they can't do this 3 games straight.
Diaw is a pussy that can't be counted on from game to game. He had his one good performance and can go back to sucking now.
Uh yes he is worse than Oberto because he is a lot shorter and Amare will just back him down and dunk on Finley 20 times in a row if no help comes.
yeah... that, or the fact Bell is a much, much better defender than what Tony has been facing lately. Don't get me wrong, I don't think even Bruce could have stopped Tony on game 3, the way he was playing, but Tony's match ups this series are a lot better than Manu's. Bell seems give Manu a lot of trouble lately. This series, Manu seems to be moving in slow motion.
Akhm, that game he was also the facilitator of Finley's and Tim's game tying three pointers.
Starting Diaw was a good move. Spurs need to counter. I just think the Suns came out with such high energy, and that first quarter seemed to go by so fast. It was over before I and the Spurs even knew it.
The real problem for SAS is none of their role players are stepping up. The Big 3 are averaging something like 83 pts a game, that is incredible production from 3 players. But it's a double-edged sword if a team can slow down 2 out of the 3.
In game 3, they played Bell, Diaw, Hill and Nash against Tony. No one was going to stop him. But this series, you are right that they are calling more plays for Tony than during the season. It might be that way all playoffs long as they try to burn teams with his speed, Pop wants him to shoot 25 times a game.
Finley has had past success against Stoudemire. Oberto has never been able to guard Stoudemire. Finley today for some unknown reason was going for pumpfakes. If Finley holds his ground and makes Stoudemire shoot, that'd be the same defense Oberto employs.
When has Finley ever had success against Stoudemire? Maybe when Finley was 5 years younger and Stoudemire was a rookie.
Having Finley guard Stoudemire is a recipe for disaster.
expect Diaw to be in Parker's face for EVERY SHOT, in gm3 he was usually wide open
I hate the Suns but I gotta agree with this. Amare was getting to the hoop, he was just missing ones he normally would make. Then the Spurs had to throw a 2nd guy down leaving Raja wide open for 3s.
05....
Like I said earlier....grant Hill getting injured and not playing is the best thing that could possibly happen for the Suns. I think it should have been obvious though that eventually Mike would have exploited the Spurs fatal weakness: size at the 3 spot.
Finley wasn't on the Spurs in 05. Unless if you meant when the Mavs played the Phoenix in the WCSF.
Were you a Suns fan in 2005? Stoudemire was destroying the Mavs, averaging like 40 in the first three games. The Mavs switched Finley onto Stoudemire and Stoudemire went down to about 20-22 point per game, IIRC.
2005 Stoudemire was pre-microfracture and even more of an athletic freak. Finley guarded him better than anyone else in that year's playoffs, including Duncan, Nazr, Dampier, Dirk and Gasol.
They dung themselves too deep a hole and wont be able to get out of it. Great game from them today but 4 games in a row like that? Seriously doubt it. Anyway it helps that the Spurs, as a team, collectively were off. I don't think it was all Suns but I give them creidt for much of it. We didn't seem to really have our heads in this game and it was puzzling to me why they came out so unfocused. Missed opportunity. Pop is going to use this to the his advantage. I'd love to be at this film session!
Not Finley
I think Pop foresaw what Mike would do in this game. He let Boris have his dominant game, but did not count on Raja Bell going completely awol. (He should have, given that Raja Bell plays like an elite 3 point shooter almost every god damn time we play him)
I think Pop already started brainstorming his game 5 gameplan during this game. Hopefully he did anyways. We need to throw some kind of different look next game to catch the Suns off guard, because chances are they will stick with the same strategy until it does not work in game.
Finley guarding Amare? I don't know if we were watching the same game, but from what I saw that move would result in Amare dunking over Finley about 20 times.
Yeah and Finley, other than the one dunk, guarded Stoudamire pretty damn well in that 3rd quarter.
You gotta put a big on Diaw. The only non-big who had success against Diaw coming into this game was Manu ... but Diaw figured out Manu too in Game 4. You put a small on Diaw and his post moves are too refined. In fact, he has better post moves than either Shaq or Amare.
He's also the best passer of the three so you can't put a small on him and then double him. He'll eat you alive. There's no other answer other than putting a big on him. That leaves a small on Stoudemire ... unless the Spurs want to use Horry at small forward.
The Suns finally figured out the Spurs' main weakness is not having a Long Three. Spurs fans hoped Udoka would be the guy who could guard the bulkier small forwards but that hasn't been the case. Diaw has abused Udoka even more than other players.
Really? Because he didn't do that when Finley was on him today.
On that one play.
What did Stoudamire do the next 3 times.
Miss
miss
pass
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