We In short, Suns fall flat Paul Coro The Arizona Republic Mar. 12, 2005 12:00 AM One All-Star was out. One is still playing on one good leg. The other was as frustrated as a three-legged dog. Shawn Marion sat out the Suns' 127-107 Friday home loss to Houston. It did not help that a hamstring-hampered Steve Nash was kept out of the paint, and Amaré Stoudemire was kept away from the rim by a 7-foot-6 impediment named Yao Ming. It resulted in the Suns' worst fourth quarter since the collapse at Cleveland four months ago. Houston scored the last four points of the third quarter to cut Phoenix's lead to 90-86 and then outscored the Suns 41-17 in the fourth, which started with Stoudemire missing on three attempts to drive on Yao. The Suns turned stubborn when they lost control of the game and were continually frustrated with no-calls on their drives. Their 15 three-pointers (six by Walter McCarty) were worthless in the end. Despite 6-for-26 field-goal shooting in the fourth, the Suns were hurt more by allowing Houston to score on 10 straight possessions to turn a 93-91 Suns lead into a 114-100 Rockets bulge. "We didn't play a smart game," Suns coach Mike D'Antoni said. "We just kept forcing the issue instead of playing basketball." Tracy McGrady "struck a match," as Stoudemire said, and wound up with 38 points. Yao, clearly gassed early, found some energy as Houston pulled back the pace late. Yao had 14 points and 10 rebounds in the fourth. Perhaps reacting to Charles Barkley stating that Houston is as soft as his belly, McGrady said, "There was nothing soft about Yao tonight."
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The Rockets have had a string of good luck recently concerning injuries to elite teams. Hopefully the confidence gain will stick towards playoffs.
WOW, that must be a record. It took them only seconds in this article to build up their excuse for losing! Congrats to you Arizona Republic!
Enough excuses. SA didn't make any when they played the Suns and the Rockets had Sura out and others through the season. Rockets are just hitting their stride again, like they did before the AllStar break.
San Antonio has won titles before, they know that one loss against a top team won't define them. Especially with Duncan and Ginobli out. The Suns weren't in the plaoffs last year! So, you can see why they are very conscious about losing a game like this. Last year they had 4 sell outs, this year they've got 17. If the fans see that team as weak, then the sellouts may not last. So don't blame the newspaper writer. I think he may be on the take from the Suns owner! When we were losing 3 out of 4, we all acknowledged that Sura was out with an injury. It's a part of the game for every team.
And, Marions replacement had his best game of the season; making 6 three pointers! I mean the guy was unconscious in the 3rd and 2nd quarters. That is until Bowen took him out of the flow of the game with the defense!!!
Suns fans are using injuries as an excuse but everyone told the Suns and their fans that their lack of a bench was going to catch up to them sooner or later. Unless Nash mysteriously gets healthy soon the Suns are going to be a SERIOUS trouble come playoff time.
