Suns Get Tough; Cavs Likely Getting More Help
SportingNews
After a very busy trade deadline, the NBA enters the home stretch, and we’ve got some lessons learned from the past week:
1. The Suns have toughened up. On Wednesday night, Suns center Amare Stoudemire found himself in an odd position—he was watching the Mavericks-Lakers game and was pulling for the Lakers. "It’s almost against my religion to root for Dallas or the Lakers, but right now I am pulling for the Lakers tonight. Hopefully they can beat Dallas and that puts us in a better position to move up in the playoffs."
The Mavs won, but the fact that the Suns are scoreboard-watching these days is symbolic of the turnaround the team has made over the last month. Since dropping a home game to Charlotte on Jan. 26, the Suns have gone 10-2, weathering the near-trade of Stoudemire and putting themselves back in position to earn a first-round homecourt advantage in the playoffs.
The big difference is something of a surprise—defense. Over the last 12 games, Phoenix has allowed 99.3 points per game, which might seem like a lot, but they had been allowing 107.9 points over the first 47 games. And it could be argued that the Stoudemire drama has actually helped the team.
"I think we are a little tougher," SG Jason Richardson told Sporting News. "As a team, when you go through outside things, you get more resilient."
2. More help likely on the way for the Cavs. The Wizards didn’t let center Zydrunas Ilgauskas off too easy when it came time to negotiate a buyout, getting Ilgauskas to fork over $1.5 million in the deal. But Ilgauskas is now a free agent, and he will have to make a decision on his future shortly.
Both Atlanta and Denver have made pitches to Ilgauskas and his agent, Herb Rudoy, but Ilguaskas remains likely to re-sign with Cleveland, where he is most comfortable and has the best chance to win a championship. By NBA rule, he would have to wait 30 days before re-joining the Cavs, but he would be eligible for the playoffs. The Cavs sure looked like they missed Ilgauskas—they lost their first three games without him.
3. Howard power. Turns out, center Dwight Howard is a pretty good player. His line against the Rockets on Wednesday was not only impressive, it was practically historic. Howard finished the game with 30 points and 16 rebounds, while going 11-for-11 from the field. According to the Magic, that makes Howard the first player since center Wilt Chamberlain in 1969 to record 30 or more points and 15 or more rebounds without missing a field goal attempt. It was Howard’s 19th consecutive double-double. And don’t look now, but Howard has even been making free throws—he’s shooting 68.5 percent from the line over his last 10 games.
"I think his game has matured," Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy said. "He’s had stretches where he’s played well, but he’s changed the way he plays now."
4. McGrady has a future. The Knicks’ acquisition of Tracy McGrady was a big one for the franchise because it cleared out so much cap space for the upcoming summer. But beyond that, it may help boost the team’s chances at actually signing free agents, if McGrady continues to play well and shows he can be a productive role player for the next few years. McGrady banged his knee on Monday and has been dealing with soreness since, but he otherwise has shown no ill effects since returning from microfracture surgery.
"I would say he is 75 percent of where he was a couple of years ago," one East scout said. "That’s probably what you’re looking at with him for the near future. He’s not going to lead the league in scoring, he’s not going to have the same stop-and-start explosiveness. But he can use this to show off his passing, he can be a very good passer when he focuses on that and that is probably what will make him useful now."
5. It’s Dray’s day. One of the offshoots of the dismantling of the Wizards has been the rise of 23-year-old forward Andray Blatche, who has averaged 24.5 points over his last five games, shooting 58.0 percent. Blatche has been very slow to develop over his five years in the NBA, but coach Flip Saunders believes Blatche can be a go-to player in the post, and that he is just scratching the surface of his potential.
"Andray is going through the learning process right now," Saunders said. "I talked to Andray and told him that he has to learn how to make the easy play out, hit our guys and trust his teammates to make plays. It’s the first time in five years that he has had someone trying to trap him with the ball. When you have never gone through that it can be a shock to start with, but he’ll continue to get better as he does it."
Why are we still talking about Blatche as an exciting project? He's been showing he lacks a brain for 4 years or something now. 5 games?
He keeps this up during one month or so and then maybe one can start considering the chance he's a very late bloomer.
Writer should ease up on the Suns have toughened up talk. We heard the same talk after one good month of basketball in November and then there was the Dec-Jan swoon, so it's probably not a good idea to premature ejaculate about one month of "tough" play regardless of it being preceded by two months of tissue soft play.
Call me pessimistic, but a team that goes from tough to soft to tough again is simply just inconsistent.
Makes you wonder if Gentry's lineup tweaks are going to save the season.
The difference here is that they're no longer starting Channing Frye at C, but rather an actual Center in Lopez. Frye was pretty good at stretching the floor for a few weeks, but he became pretty useless after everyone figured out that you can't leave him open outside. The addition of Lopez has instantly improved our defense and rebounding. In the the last 10 games, the Suns are the 2nd best rebounding team in the league. They're also tied for 3rd in blocked shots and 9th in opponents' FG%, while still maintaining a high-powered offense.
I completely understand your skepticism, but I think our "toughness" is for real this time.
That's a fair assessment. The best explanation of their monthly ups and downs is that in November, Channing, Dudley and somewhat J-Rich over achieved like crazy and made them look a lot better than they were, so in December and January when those guys came back down to Earth they started to play worse.
Channing still was pretty useless in February, but Lopez emerged as an all around better player than Channing was in November, Dudley wasn't as good as he was early on but he adjusted to find ways to contribute and lastly Amare IMO is a more well rounded player than he's ever been. Those things coupled together made the Suns start to win again this month.
As for how we can expect them to play from here on out, Dudley IMO hit a wall in Dec-Jan when teams started to scout him and made adjustments so I think he's gonna stay productive. Considering this really is Lopez's rookie year he could hit a wall, and hopefully the Amare we've seen since the AS break is here to stay.
2nd best rebounding team is very arbitrary... if I read right they rank 29th in defensive rebound rate.
Amare has a history of performing well after the AS break (when healthy) and I don't expect that to let up. He should be a 25 and 10 player from here on out.
The addition of Lopez has done more than just improve our rebounding and defense. Lopez doesn't require as many shots as Channing Frye did, and as a result JRich and Amare are getting extra touches. This is how it should be. Our two most potent offensive weapons getting the majority of the shots, creating their own offense when needed. I think JRich's Dec-Jan struggles can be attributed to his hand injury. He couldn't hit the broad side of a barn for two months straight, but now he's unstoppable again like he was in November. He's not only shooting better, but he's moving better without the ball, and he's more aggressive when he has the ball.
More or less, the team is going to live or die by how well Grant Hill and J-Rich do. When Phoenix is winning, they are moving around on offense getting high percentage shots, crashing the boards and being active defenders. When Phoenix is losing you can count on seeing those two stand around on offense settling for jumpers, not box out the guys they're guarding, and play horrible D.
For the season, they do. The Last 10 Games stat I posted is important because it coincides with Gentry's decision to insert Robin Lopez into the starting lineup. They're certainly not 29th in defensive rebounding rate since then.
It's a tale of two teams, kind of like how the Mavs are a different team now that they're starting Haywood and Butler. When Frye was starting Center, the Suns' frontcourt was weak defensively and weak on the glass. Now they're starting Lopez and the team has been great ever since.
Getting J-Rich involved early is something they should do every night. You see this a lot from big men (Shaq, Amare, Bynum just to name a few), but J-Rich's intensity on the boards and on D is largely dependent on the touches he gets. If J-Rich gets his touches he has nights like on Tuesday when he grabs 13 rebounds and does his job on D (holds Sefolosha and Harden to a combined 5 points on 2 of 12 shooting).
... so after years of allowing 105+ per game, all of a sudden 12 games give up 99.3 makes you tough?
HAHAHAHHAHAHHHHAAAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH LMAO @ SUNS STANDARDS
Laugh it up. Suns are playing a larger lineup than most teams in the league. Small ball is now a thing of the past, thank god.
The Suns are tougher than they have been in recent history. And yes, doing things like closing games on 16-3 runs to win by 2 and holding one of the best offensive teams in the league to 30 2nd half points qualifies as tough. Now STFU and go figure out how to build a stronger levee.
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