Officials, injury are not to blame for deflating loss
May. 7, 2007 12:00 AM
Curses.
The Suns said a few, mostly in the direction of the officials.
Their fans are beginning to believe in them, and after watching another freak injury put a dent in yet another postseason, it's getting easy to believe in the supernatural.
But once you get past all of the peripheral stuff - the conspiracy theories, the bloody bandages and the fog of disappointment - the real culprit is staring at the Suns in the bathroom mirror. And if you don't believe me, listen to Steve Nash, who lost more blood over the weekend than Oscar De La Hoya.
"We just have to have a bigger heart and continue to push through these invisible barriers that seem to pop up sometimes," Nash said after his team's 111-106 loss to the Spurs in Game 1. "I don't know what they are, but we certainly have moments where we don't play as hard as we should."
Just what you need, huh? The captain was calling out some of his teammates, and if energy/hustle are the criteria, then the candidates seem to be Boris Diaw (two rebounds in 25 minutes), James Jones (zero contribution in nine minutes) and Shawn Marion (extremely quiet until the fourth quarter and largely ineffective guarding Tony Parker).
You can blame this deflating loss on a lack of poise. It happened on the court, where the Suns couldn't function in the waning moments without Nash, where an out-of-control Leandro Barbosa made many bad decisions. And it happened off the court, where the coaching staff became overly obsessed with the officials, and the medical staff couldn't stop the bleeding.
Just like that, home-court advantage is gone.
"We'll just hope we don't have any other calamities at the end of games," Nash said.
No doubt, this was a cruel twist of fate. After all, when Nash and Tony Parker banged heads like teenagers in a mosh pit, Parker went down for the count. The Spurs point guard acted like he had gotten the worst of the deal, by far. And then Nash started bleeding.
While trainer Aaron Nelson "immediately" knew Nash's wound required s ches (six), there was only 2:53 left in the game. The decision to not sew up Nash on the spot was surely the correct call. But while the Suns tried stalling and burning through timeouts, they erred in not getting the bleeding stopped before sending Nash to the court.
"Every time we got it stopped, it started leaking out the bottom and the sides," Nelson said.
The chaos culminated in (a) Barbosa fouling Parker when the Suns should've fouled Tim Duncan, a bricklayer from the foul line; and (b) Stoudemire attempting a short shot with 11 seconds left when the Suns needed a trey to tie.
"We definitely needed (Nash) out there," Stoudemire said.
As if you needed any more reason why Nash is the real MVP . . .
Afterward, the Suns were predictably livid with the officials, particularly a call on Stoudemire near the end of the first half. That one was a bad call, and because it was No. 3 on Stoudemire, it had lingering effects. But every basketball game is full of inaccurate calls.
But instead of letting it go, D'Antoni was still arguing with official Bob Delaney before the start of the third quarter. And when assistant Marc Iavaroni chimed in from 30 feet away, Delaney had enough. He nailed Iavaroni with a technical foul, although D'Antoni gets half the blame for that one. Alas, in this game, the Suns actually out-whined the Spurs.
Nevertheless, the Suns need to remember that nothing is lost just yet. Unlike the misfortune that derailed the past two postseasons (bad injuries to Joe Johnson and Raja Bell), Nash will be playing in Game 2. Yet this time, the Suns had better come with their poise and they had better leave with a victory.
"We've got to get Game 2," Stoudemire said. "There are no excuses.
"There is nothing . . . except for winning."
Unfortunately, a season depends on it.
Reach Bickley at [email protected] or (602) 444-8253. Check out his blog at azcentral.com.
Is this person a sports journalist or an ignorant fan with a job at the newspaper? It sounds like they dont know what the rule is for fouls away from the ball in the last 2 minutes, and also ignorant of the fact that 11 seconds is a lot of time in a basketball game when you're only down by three...
^ i think he meant that duncan had the ball very briefly.
Watch the replay again. Tony was holding Barbosa's arm as he was running away to get separation. Barbosa didn't push him down, Tony got tripped up on Barbosa's feet.
If you are going to argue that it was a foul against Barbosa, I'd strongly have to disagree.
The foul against Amare at the end of the half was atrocious as well. Duncan pulled him down, but because Duncan hit the ground first, it looked like he was the one fouled.
Overall, the officiating was HORRIBLE in this game for both teams. The refs let this game get way too physical. Duncan was getting hacked all over the place, and wasn't going to the line. Bowen was dry humping Nash all game long.
This was the worst officiated game of the playoffs so far, and not just because I am a Suns fan. I understand the refs wanting to just "let the players play, " but there was no excuse for this type of game.
It is ok, Salvatore is doing game 2, so Phoenix will win game 2, no doubt about it.
I know few if any of you live in Phoenix, but the local channel 15 reporter, Craig Fouhy, was blaming the officials on tv after the game to anyone who would listen. He's the guy D'Antoni told "was going to get him fined."
I thought it was a pretty good article. Of course phoenix would question those calls as we would if they happened to us, but all in all he didn't blame officiating and was as unbiased as a writer can get that follows a team all year long.
Pretty much. As far as home town journalism goes, this is as objective as it gets.
I blame D'antoni for this loss. Kurt Thomas should've been getting way more playing time.
Are you saying that Parker was not holding Barbosa's arm? He was. If you want to get really technical, Tony should have been called for that foul, and change of possession. (that call is never made though on the inbounds)
I watched it, and he complained about the refs to everyone he interviewed. He really wanted to blame the refs for the loss. As bad as they were though, you can't. If the Suns were up 5, the refs don't matter in that situation.
I saw a couple of bad calls that went against us as well. I was ing and moaning like any fan, but unless the calls are really really one-sided all game, they tend to even out.
The Suns got a bad break with Nash going out. My first thought was that the bad break was going against us with Parker lying prone on the floor. That could have gone either way and been bad for either team or even both could have been out of it.
Breaks and officiating are part of the game. We have to live with it and hope we score enough points to make it unnecessary to whine about them.
There was incidental contact between Tony and Leandro prior to Leandro shoving Tony to the floor. Perhaps this is what you were referring to.
Stoudamire did alternate between holding Tim and pushing him.
both are fouls, of course.
The refs don't have a stake in the game.
So, the only impartial, professional observers did not agree with your view, which clearly is not impartial.
Suns did not lose due to fouls.
AZ Republic and Nash seem to understand better what to take from the game than some Spurs fans.
This article was written by Dan Bickley who is often crucified by Suns fans as a hater when, in fact, he's a very good writer and often tells you the real story behind the game.
I think his point here is "don't blame the refs, the Suns had opportunities to win and they messed up".
He has his own morning radio show as well.
It's ridiculously impossible for an official to notice whether a player's fingers are slightly curved against another player's wrist. Between the footwork, the body-banging, the shoving and players cutting into one another and setting picks, the officials have to keep track of way too much to be watching the fingers of a player.
They can easily notice, however, when one player is stumbling to the ground and the other punctuates it by flinging his forearm forward, ensuring that the other player will fall. Barbosa doesn't need to pressure Parker 35 feet from the hoop, he made a bad, youthful decision to try to stop the inbound pass and it cost him. If you seriously want to go through and count every call such as Parker's hand on Barbosa's arm, every player fouls out in the first quarter of every game. Officials have to call the obvious fouls that directly impact the flow of the game. Foul or not, it was Barbosa who erred when he decided to press coverage that far out.
only a suns fan would see it that way, amare CLEARLY had his left arm wrapped around duncan and fell back on him. Your boy AMARE needs to be careful, as does that other hot head, raja
This is a ing playoff game, it's going to be physical. Duncan got his fair share of calls (I actually thought he deserved every one of his ft's for once); the Suns hacked him quite a bit and the officials did a good job of calling it. However, the Barbosa-Parker play was questionable. But why was Barbosa riding Parker so closely? You don't do that on inbounds plays, smart players know that. The Duncan call at the end of the half should have been on Duncan. It changed the game, only in the fact that D'Antonio spent the entire afternoon ing about it rather than coaching his team. Other than that, it had no effect.
Of course.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I am as about as impartial as they come. Everyone, that has seen that game/replay that wasn't a Spurs fan thought that it was a foul on Amare.
Cry Havoc, you are right about Barbosa. He did play Parker too close. I did also state that this was a call that is never made. Barbosa needs to learn not to play so close on inbounds plays. Maybe he didn't know that particular rule.
He is also getting a lot of flack about the foul with 30+ seconds left that sent Ginobili to the line. I actually like that foul. If the Spurs take 20 seconds off of the clock, and score, there is only about 10 seconds left and the Suns are down 4. With the Spurs being one of the worst free throw shooting teams in the league, it seems like a good risk vs. reward scenerio. The Suns now have 30 seconds on the clock, and only a 3 or 4 team league. If you are going to play the free throw game with 10 seconds, you might as well play it with 30 seconds to give yourself some more opportunities to score.
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