Sunday, March 9, 2008

1st Quarter live blog: Spurs & Suns

courtesy of fanhouse.


- Let's hope the Suns are a little more awake today than they were the last time they played a Sunday afternoon game: a 36-point loss to the Pistons on February 24th.

- Despite the Suns' 3-6 record since acquiring Shaq, they really have been playing better of late. They handled Utah for most of the night on Friday ... before allowing them to shoot 12-16 in the fourth quarter, that is. Pretty tough loss for Phoenix, considering Shaq was literally sprinting back on defense, to the point where the Suns' announcers were actually joking about it.

- What's with the country-rock band opening the show with Def Leppard's corpse? The NBA seriously does not know it's fan demographic.

- What about starting Boris Diaw instead of Shaq? It might allow the Suns to begin the game playing their (now old) uptempo style. That probably wouldn't go over well with Shaq, but it might be worth a shot.

- "Los" Spurs? Seriously? Meanwhile, seventeen chances for the Suns will send Shaq to the line.

- The "Los" Suns jerseys look kinda cool, the Spurs' ones look like they just slapped a LOS on them above the normal ones. Who knows, maybe they didn't want to risk making Popovich angry by rolling out brand new uni's.

- Okay, one more thing on the uniforms: do normal NBA jerseys say "THE Suns" or "THE Spurs?" I just checked, and they do not. How about dropping the Spanish translation of Suns (Sol) or Spurs (aburrir) on the jerseys instead?

- Seems like Nash could have that jumper in the lane anytime he wants, doesn't it?

- Same with Parker on his 15-18 footers. Shaq dominating early with 8 of his team's 12.

- Nice pass from Shaq there, but that's over-passing. Someone on Phoenix needs to shoot that, instead it results in their second three second call of the game. Shaq with 8 points and 3 boards, and Suns are up 12-8.

- Yikes. Nash's nose in HD: not pretty. Still looks messed up from that hit he took in last year's playoffs.

- Nash ended up guarding Timmy on a switch ...and shut him down! Meanwhile, nice to see Suns fans booing Horry every time he gets the ball.

- Really nice half-court defense there from the Suns. Doubled Timmy, scrambled to cover the shooters, then the loose ball ended up being a three second call. STAT scores on the other end, Suns up six.

- That was a nice move by Ginobili to get out of the double team, but I think he probably lifted his pivot foot to do so.

- JVG mentions how horrible the buyout thing is, but I'm not so sure. Look how crazy the playoffs are going to be thanks to all of these players changing cities.

- Barbosa's consistency (or lack of) discussed. Let's all remember that Barbosa's reputation is built on playoff performances the last two years over the Lakers, while he was being guarded by Smush Parker. I'm just sayin'.

- As well as the Suns' started, the defense of the second unit let them down, and they find themselves trailing 25-22 after one.

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