I would have loved to see this game Nash vs Kidd Speed vs Size I'm guess Kidd's height and stength came into play here Rocket River
He looks awful. If he loses his explosiveness, well, he will be another AVERAGE PF in a league full of PFs.
Amare JUST came back from the injury. I would allow him some time to get his game legs back before we start saying he has lost his explosiveness for the rest of his career. In fact, he might not have that explosiveness (100%) until next season. Not a lot of time left until the playoffs.
People here expressing shock that this can happen to Phoenix. If we were Phoenix fans there'd be about half a dozen "FIRE D'ANTONI!!!" threads in garm by now, sprinkled with a mix of "trade Amare"s and what not. I seem to recall a similar situation in mid February.
They interviewed Antoine Wright on NBA TV and he was asked about Amare and he said the same thing that Amare looked a little slower and less explosive. Also said Amare was a great player and he was looking forward to him getting back to his old form. I think you have to give Amare until next season to see if the knee pain he's been experiencing post surgery subsides. If he continues to have chronic episodes next season, he is done. Alan Houston is a case in point, his knees were never right after his micro fracture surgery.
A lot of open shots were missed by Marion, Bell, Jones, Amare, Nash, Barbosa. Plenty of open looks from all over that they usually make. Not giving that one to the Nets. I will give the Nets huge credit for playing a strong three quarters, never letting up, and looking to run quite a bit. This is a team that loses interest, but they had it tonight. Also, their initial help off of Suns penetration was excellent, New Jersey really moved their feet. Didn't watch the fourth quarter, but the Suns just did not have it. Amare couldn't jump, but most of his shots were off of broken plays where he ended up with the ball. His one turnover was a charge. He's half the jumper he once was, but it will get better after this road trip. The Suns' D, which once was great, is the issue now. Not Amare -- he barely touches the ball.
Not sure about that. He was probably the best defensive player on a mediocre (ranked 16th) Suns defense last year. Phoenix, as late as mid-January, were the second best defensive team in the league statistically. Lazy mainstream media types will trot out the usual "points allowed per game" stats, forgetting (of course) that Memphis isn't the best defensive team in the NBA, the Cavs weren't the best defensive team of the mid-to-late 90s, and that pace kind of (ok, totally) plays a part in skewing those numbers all to hell. With pace factored in, the Suns were the second best team in mid-January, based mainly on their ability to clog passing lanes, force teams into perimeter shots, and close off penetration. But since then, something exacerbated by the injury to Kurt Thomas, the Suns have faltered. They're the tenth-best team now, which is a huge drop to make after just two months. And they're not just regressing to 2004-05's mean, because they are playing at a rate far worse then the rate they played at for the bulk of last season. Kevin Pelton, who has done brilliant work on this team all season, had them at 109.1 points per 100 possessions from Jan 1 until march 14th, which would put them at 24th in the league for the full year -- eight spots below where they were last year. Bell needs to return to form. His shooting has been off over the last nine weeks and he's let it effect his overall play. Barbosa is not helping as much as he used to, and with Thomas out, Marion has had to pay more attention to rebounding and guarding the front of the rim then moving out to hedge against screen/roll penetration. With Amare taking over Thomas' role as a zoner, staying close to the rim as the last line of defense, there is no reason why the Suns can't return to form.
You think Nash is faster than Kidd? Someone must have pissed Jkidd off cause he's was on a mission the last 2 games, single handedly embarrassing 2 MVP candidates.
If Jason Kidd had a jump shot, he would be just as dominant as the best to play in the game. Ever. He can do EVERYTHING but make jump shots consistently.
Hello everyone! This is my first post in CF. I watched the game yesterday. The defense of the Nets was excellent. J Kidd always has success againt flashy but smaller guards like TJ Ford and S Nash. J Kidd is a good defender and on the offensive end, J Kidd posts up smaller guards sometimes to wear them down a little bit. On defense, R Jefferson, V Carter and J Kidd are able to switch and still have good speed and size to stay with anybody. The Nets bigs didnt need to run out the perimeter to force the Suns gurads out. The bigs just stayed around or in the paint to clog the paint. The game was over at halftime. I give my credit to Lawrence Frank for such an excellent defensive scheme and he had the personnel to carry it out. Also, Nenad Kristic is GOOD!!! N Kristic is like Chris Kaman but with a jumper and more smooth post moves. - MiddleEarth
Good analysis. The Nets defense is very, very underrated. Their bigs never have to come out to the perimeter because they got lots of size and atheticism already between the big three. And while Krstic is no Yao, he certainly is no dud either. He doesn't have Kaman's size and strength but he's still better offensively. I secretly hope the Nets upset the Pistons in the ECF and meet San Antonio for the finals. After I saw them spank Dallas (handily, I might add), I knew they were for real.
I agree whole-heartedly. Can you imagine Steve Nash owning more MVP trophies than Hakeem Olajuwon, Oscar Robertson, Allen Iverson, Charles Barkley, Julius Erving, David Robinson or Kevin Garnett? And that's not even to mention all of the players who never won a MVP at all that were FAR better than Steve Nash. Clyde Drexler, for instance, led lots of Trailblazers teams deep into the playoffs, and I believe even to the Finals twice? He never won an MVP. John Stockton, imo, is the greatest point guard of all time and he never won a single mvp, much less two! Or what about Isiah Thomas? He was a far better player than Steve Nash, he led his team to a couple championships and never won an MVP. If Steve Nash wins the MVP two years in a row, it's essentially a testament to how crappy the quality of the NBA is these days.
McCallum says he's done for the year, D'Antoni says Amare could be out for three days, "or the rest of the year," but Jack guesses that the latter is true. Probably because D'Antoni told him something off the record (Jack was an unofficial member of the SUns' coaching staff last fall). Anyway, go to SI.com for the news. And stay away (seriously, no false modesty here) from my load of crap article.
I remember everyone saying how SLOWED he was after the operations I dunno. . . have not seen him play in a while Rocket River
As someone who is in field of Biomedical Engineering (Biomechanics and Biomaterials with empahsis on Orthapedics), I can tell you Micro fracture knee surgery is no joke. It's a repair job that makes it serviceable, especially for athletes, not get it back to where it was. If you are studying the problem strictly in terms of Biomechanics, Amare is going to be effected with this surgery even more compared to others because he Jumps high and he jumps a lot. To make this probelm very simple, the higher you jump, the more explosive your jumps are, greater the stress on the knee, since stress is force over area. Since they did not change the area of Amare's knee, if he is going to jump with the same explosiveness, he is basically trying to generate the same stress. Considering that this is a repaired knee and missing natural lubricant, ummm i wouldnt suggest Amare do it. Suns and Amare are taking this way too lightly. Which makes me wonder. Just a speculation. Could it be that Collangelo knew that Amare is never going to be the same and he basically ate up Sun's cap space with the huge contract, so he left knowing that Sun's dont stand to win a championship now? If I were him, I would try to stay there to take credit for assembling the team that would win the championship.
