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I remember KJ in his prime. Reminds me a lot of Chris Paul. Or the other way around.
Marbury has always been a Spurs killer. He scored 26 points on 28 shots in game 1, which is a far cry from 45 percent.
I remember KJ in his prime. Reminds me a lot of Chris Paul. Or the other way around.
Pre injury, I think you're right. Devestating mid-range game, attacked the rim and fantastic passer. Not a great defender, but could net steals. Not a great volume three-point shooter, but could make 'em when necessary.
Each is the unique PG that could score thirty, dole out double-digit assists, completely control the game without being selfish in doing so.
I really enjoy watching Paul. I hope his prime isn't robbed from him the way KJ's was.
I forgot about game one. The next three games he shot 45% almost exact. I cited the stat earlier, and just got jumbled.
05
Last year's. They could have beaten anyone but the Spurs last year. Honestly if they had a better coach they very well could have. Nash was still MVPing it up, Amare was pretty much back to form, and when they could run Marion was all over that . Throw in Barbosa having a quality year, KT defending the post, and a handful of shooters that could bury a team when given the chance. Diaw not doing his impression of the Goodyear Blimp would have put them over the top.
the team that battled the celtics to a 3 overtime affair in the finals. it featured paul westphaul. seriously.
All time, I agree. The mid 90's team was good, but Westphal was still the best shooter there, and he was the coach.
That Suns team was carried by Stern all the way through the playoffs to ensure the highest possible ratings match-up...And it worked seeing as the '93 Finals was the highest rated Finals of all-time up to that point(the '98 Finals would eventually surpass the '93 series in ratings since it was Jordan's last year).
The fix was obvious from the first round when the the '93 Suns were seconds away from getting eliminated by the 8th seeded Lakers in the first round. LA got ruined by a bad call in the final 30 secs of Game 5 on their floor. Barkley dunked in a ball after the 24 sec clock expired, cutting LA's lead to 2 pts. The refs just disdained calling it...wiped away an extra possession that Phoenix would have needed. Worthy and Scott both threw themselves to the floor in disgust after the non-call. Then Majerle hit a shot to send the game to OT.
As if that wasn't enough, the Suns also needed 64 FTAs against the Sonics in game 7 of the WCF.
To quote Eddie Johnson:
“It’s hard to win when the other team shoots 65 free throws”
And people want to throw asterisks at the Spurs
No, that team was far from great. You think the current Suns are bad defensively? The 93 Suns were an utter donut in the middle.
And Spurs fans complain that the Suns fans are paranoid?That Suns team was carried by Stern all the way through the playoffs to ensure the highest possible ratings match-up...And it worked seeing as the '93 Finals was the highest rated Finals of all-time up to that point(the '98 Finals would eventually surpass the '93 series in ratings since it was Jordan's last year).
The fix was obvious from the first round when the the '93 Suns were seconds away from getting eliminated by the 8th seeded Lakers in the first round. LA got ruined by a bad call in the final 30 secs of Game 5 on their floor. Barkley dunked in a ball after the 24 sec clock expired, cutting LA's lead to 2 pts. The refs just disdained calling it...wiped away an extra possession that Phoenix would have needed. Worthy and Scott both threw themselves to the floor in disgust after the non-call. Then Majerle hit a shot to send the game to OT.
As if that wasn't enough, the Suns also needed 64 FTAs against the Sonics in game 7 of the WCF.
To quote Eddie Johnson:
“It’s hard to win when the other team shoots 65 free throws”
And people want to throw asterisks at the Spurs
No, that team was far from great. You think the current Suns are bad defensively? The 93 Suns were an utter donut in the middle.
Before my time.
The best team to watch was - BY FAR - the 1989 team. They averaged 119 ppg.
Three 20-ppg scorers, led by Chambers at 25 per, with Eddie Johnson at 22 and KJ at 20. Throw in 16 per from Gilliam, 14 per from Hornacek and a respectable 9 per from a rookie Majerle, and I'll be honest here, I'd like to see D'Antoni's system with these guys. Good Lord would it be fun to watch.
1989-90 was great fun as well. Not quite the potency of scoring. The 1990-91 team was the team that holds the record for points in a game: 173. That was in regulation. Boxscore...
Can you blame them? After the endless whining from Suns fans all summer about asterisks/refs/cheating/Stern conspiracies I'm the only one to bring up the hypocrisy of your deluded fanbase.
The media loves Phoenix so they like to keep the '93 Suns and their 65 FTAs under the radar while blasting the Spurs and their "cheating" ways.
The 92-93 Suns shot over 2500 FT in the regular season. That's with two of its top-3 scorers missing 30 games each. Despite the injuries, the Suns averaged 30 FTs a game. With a healthy Dumas and Johnson, I remember games of 40+ attempts being the norm. In said game, Barkley got 20+, which happened, and KJ had 16, which was also something that happened on occasion.
I'm not here to say the refs didn't favor the Suns, but it was in Phoenix, and the Suns shot a ton of FTs most games, so to me it doesn't exactly stick out the way it does to you.
It sticks out to me since that Phoenix team holds the playoff record for most FTs made in a single game. When 57 of your points come from the line there's always going to be doubts.
Not to mention the fact that their 62 win team was brought to the brink of elimination by a 39 win Lakers team. And people want to laugh at the '07 Mavs. It's very likely that Barkely and co. would be considered the greatest chokers of all-time if not for the refs allowing Chuck to make that dunk after the clock expired.
The Stern conspiracy theories for the Spurs don't hold up since the Spurs are, after all, not a very popular team. It's much more reasonable to assume that Stern rigged the '93 playoffs for the Suns(highest tv ratings for an NBA Finals up to that point).
OK, thanks to basketball-reference.com's boxscore database, I was able to look at every boxscore from the 92-93 season. The Suns went for 35+ FT attempts 28 times during the regular season, including 10 times of 40 or more, and five times of 45 or more with a regular season high of 54. During the postseason, the Suns added another five instances of 35+ FT attempts, including three 40+ games and the now infamous, 65 attempt game. During matchups with the Sonics, the Suns almost averaged 35 attempts a game.
Attempting 65 FTs is absurd. I can't, nor would I attempt to deny it. But that Suns team when healthy routinely shot 40+ FT attempts a game.
Last edited by JMarkJohns; 05-01-2008 at 10:22 PM.
You're just barking up the wrong tree. Even during the frenzy last year, or during the Lakers romps, I never blatently accused the League of fixing games or series. Sure, the refs made some iffy calls in the favor of some teams, but tell me this, if there is a conspiracy to place popular teams in the Finals, when was it abandoned? It sure as hasn't been in place during the last handful of seasons! If you want to discuss reasonable, then it seems like such would include placing the most viewed team in terms of TV ratings and road crowds in the Finals, no? If there were conspiracies, that seems like something Stern would have been certain to make happen.
Last edited by JMarkJohns; 05-01-2008 at 10:28 PM.
Even more absurd when you consider the fact that it happened during game 7 of the WCF.
Conspiracy theories aside, I still don't think much of that Suns team. They struggled against a weak 39 win Laker squad, needed 6 games to put away a one man Spurs team(only won game 6 by two points), and went 7 games against the Sonics(who I believe were the superior team).
i agree.
"The lady doth protest too much..."
- Queen Gertrude, HAMLET
I wish you would stop masquerading as an objective opinion here. You despise the Suns. It's not just Nash's teams. It's not just the 92-93 team. It's every Suns team. They could finally win a le and you'd come up with something to berate them, or at the very least, say they were the worst team to ever be handed a le.
That team was damn good, went through some devastating injuries and still won 62 games. They ran into the buzzsaw that was MJ in his prime.
BTW, I checked and this donut defense was ranked 9th in the league in efficiency that season.
I think that team was the most fun to watch, but last year's team IMO was their best of the 7 seconds or less teams. Not that they were better than the Spurs, and the suspensions will give Suns fans the excuse of claiming otherwise, but they were pretty damn close to San Antonio. And for a D'Antoni team, they were not bad on defense, they were around 13th in the League in defensive efficiency.
If they could have got a GD defensive rebound they would have been top-5. They forced/got (depending on your angle) so many misses, but one-third of them wound up in the hands of their opposition, with more than half of those yielding point-blank layins/dunks which increased their FG% allowed and their PPG allowed.
Now, much of the reason they couldn't get rebounds stemmed from the swarming defense they employed. Rather than rely on positioning, thus being ready for rebounds, the Suns defense ran around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to make the rotation, thus were always away from a body to box out, or had a back turned or were simply too far out of position to make a proper attempt. The fact that no Suns bodied up for rebounds allowed wide-open lanes for opposing wings to fly in and snag longish rebounds.
So... maybe they wouldn't have been top-5, but that's the damnable misery of it. They could have been better on the boards, but that likely would have sacrificed defensive tenacy, or they could be extremely active, but by overplaying rotations, always be out of position to get the rebounds.
I will always believe that the Suns could've made the Shaq trade work by keeping Marion and dealing Amare. I think that would've solved the alpha kitty cat fights between them that led to sand in Shawn's vagina and pretty much covered all the bases. They'd have defensive rebounding, an impediment to driving to the basket, and they still would've gotten enough post scoring with Shaq and Diaw posting up, and Marion could've guarded whichever Spurs wing player got hot.
That they hung on to an admittedly extremely talented but flawed guy in part because the casual fans would've rioted is another indictment of Sarver. And Marion was their best finisher on the break. They wouldn't have had to give up playing so fast and become so conventional.
I don't believe in hype. That's all Phoenix has been the past few years.
Good but not better than the '93 Sonics who were 4th in the league in Off, 2nd in Def. Seems much more balanced than the '93 Suns(1st in Off, 9th in Def). They also lost three times to Seattle in the reg season.
Jordan averaged 41 or 42 ppg against them in the Finals. That's still a record isn't it? Not taking anything away from Jordan(GOAT obviously) but the Suns could have tried to defend the paint a little better.
Lots of gun-to-the-head What Ifs?, for sure.
If the Suns end up blowing things up, I'd really like for them to trade Amare this offseason if the package is right. Maybe Deng (sign-n-trade), Noah and the 2008 Chicago 1st?
If you had watched the series, which I doubt you did, you'd know that there was nothing the Suns could have done. Truth be told, there was nothing any team could have done. Even in the Knicks series when Jordan went for 30's per game, tempo played a large role in his overall PPG.
And, AGAIN, when you bring up regular season, remember that the Suns were without KJ for 30+ games (2nd-leading scorer, assists leader) and Dumas (3rd-leading scorer and sixth man). I don't care to check because I've already done enough of your research for you, but I'd be willing to bet that one or the pair missed at least one of those Seattle games.
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