I hope Bonzi Wells could play and Novak should play at least 20 minutes. Also i hope luther Head will make all his 3-pointers if Rockets want to win.
I would further suggest to put a "spy" on Nash. On every shot (made or missed), Nash's defender play denial. So when the shot goes up, the defender (Rafer, Head, or hopefully VSpan) IMMEDIATELY sticks to Nash. Deny the outlet passer to pass it to Nash. Have some other Sun initiate their offense. They're not as fluid when Nash doesn't initiate the defense. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to deny Nash the ball baseline to baseline because that would be next to impossible. I just want to deny him the ball from whoever the outlet passer is. I just don't want him to be the first Suns player to touch the ball. If we can deny Nash the outlet pass at least 40% of the time and have someoe else bring it up, I think that would be enough to disrupt their flow.
Not a bad strategy, the Suns definitly have enough ballhandlers to break up a press of that sort but when we played them last year it seemed like they wouldn't even bring five players downcourt every possession. It was way too easy for them to score on turnovers and long rebounds, so it did not matter if Yao was scoring at will, so we definitly have to control that outlet pass and slow down the transition. On the plus side we never had a full roster playing them last season so now that we are quicker and more athletic it'll be interesting to see how we can slow them down. Yao= Amare Hayes< Diaw Battier< Marion T-mac> Bell Alston< Nash Doesn't look good, on the road second night of a back to back. Suns-101 Rox - 93
Good strategies over all. Making Nash a shooter is a good idea. The Spurs did that in the playoffs 2 years ago and it worked. Nash did score a lot of points but eventually he tired out and they lost the series. It's just like Doug Collins said, when you play the suns your defense has to be very displined. Stay put with your man, hold the earge to help. When Nash penetrates and you leave your man to help that's when you're the most volnerable. My concerns though: 1. How Yao will play defense. I much rather the highlight thirst Amare tries to dunk on Yao on every play, than Kurt Thomas shooting 15 ft jumpers. Yao will alter some shots if they try to show him up, but if KT is on Yao will have hard time guarding that. 2. Our offense is already slow enough, I don't think we need to slow it down even further. All in all I believe our offense has been clicking just fine. It is defense that we really have to adjust.
Agreed. If I recall, the last time Amare tried to play Yao, Yao owned (though this was admittedly a long time ago...). As much as I hate to give ESPN yet more dunks on Yao to show, Amare trying 8 and making 2 is still better than Thomas shooting 4/7.
We get blown out for the first time in the season, Rafer gets owned by Nash, Yao tired for most of the game, Amare all over Hayes, T-Mac not play. 69-103 suns win
I think we have to play novak for his shooting alone. The suns are impossible to guard because all they do is jumpshots anyway so we won't need his defence that much anyway.
these guys have beat us 8 out of the last 10, and they havent been close. we'll see what this team is made of this game, particularly, we'll see if we can still work it in to yao OFTEN and CONSISTENTLY against a whole bunch of fronting by th suns. i think we lose 110-98
Too much negativity in this thread. I know the Suns have had our number the last couple of years, but c'mon. You guys act as if we shouldn't even show up to play. Just watch the game. Two hot teams are going at it. It should be fun. Mcgrady will have to step up, I agree, but we certainly have a shot to win if we play the defense we've been playing the last couple of games.
Agreed I dont care if its a back to back man.We may be matched up against the Suns in the playoffs so stop with the Suns ohhhhhhh.If the Rox are as good as we think they are they should be able to handle their business and get a W.We may have no answer for Nash, but they have no answer for Yao. Its all gonna depend on who executes their gameplan and makes the other team play theirs IE Rockets half-court...Suns transistion offense.
