Off to 5-1 start. Includes wins over Clippers, Warriors, T'Wolves, Heat, and lastly the Celtics tonight. For real or having early success due to partially "soft" schedule?
Beating Boston is good, but the only other quality team they've faced was Orlando and they lost. (I view Miami as a fluke, too)
Too early to tell IMO. Boston for some reason always has trouble Beating fast paced teams like Phoenix and knicks. Maybe because there a half court team and there players are old.
any team with Steve Nash running Point guard will be a playoffs team. I don't care if he's 80, this guy is truly one of the greatest offensive players in the history of the game, and did I mention he's insanely fun to watch? I root against every western conference team not named Rockets, but the Suns, Golden State, and Denver (sometimes) have a special place in my basketball heart..
True, but any team with Steve Nash running it will also never win a championship because, imo, he is the single worst defensive player in the nba.
any team with nash, stoudamire is for real, jrich is playing better, and frye has been a surprise there. i don't think they can win it all because of their defense, but gentry is doing a good job taking over.
I would say the Suns are back in their niche. They were scary before they got Shaq and when they had Marion. It was simply trying to find right pace of the game for them, which we all saw what was quite obvious after dantoni left.
one-on-one defensive, yes, absolutely. But he is vastly underrated in terms of team defense. Nash's lateral movement is very limited, and he can get beat off the dribble by pretty much every other guard in the league. What people don't notice, however, is his intelligence and high IQ when he gets help defense. He always plays the passing lane to the big man who's left open by the help defense coming over to help Nash, and thus limits exploitation of his defensive short comings.
No, he is not even an average team defender, and man-man, he absolutely is the worst in the NBA. Do you remember Rafer ****ing Alston torching him numerous times? The guy gets run over on the defensive end and gives the opposing PGs a field day. WHy do you think his teams never win come playoff time?
Yes, Nash's defense is not good. But his offense usually more than offset his defense. I do remember Nash torching Alston even more every time. (BTW, no need to use profanity on a player's name.) That's a myth. The Suns lost to a superior Dallas team in the WCF in 2006. They almost beat the eventual champion Spurs in 2007 if not for the stupid suspension of two of their two key players.
I never understood why many people had them out of the playoffs. I seen people predict that Oklahoma City, Memphis, or the Clippers would take their spot in the playoffs.
I think shaq was just not a good fit, and now he is gone and they can go back to being the funnest team to watch again.
and Terry Porter. Really they started to turn it around last year once he got hurt, but when Amare had the eye injury it was pretty much over for them. If Amare didn't get hurt last year I think they would have made the playoffs.
