Suns Bash(?) Bulls: 88-77

by Seth Pollack on Jan 27, 2008 3:41 PM MST in Phoenix Suns: Game Coverage

A few weeks ago ABC decided to drop our Suns-Bulls game from national TV and went with the Celtic-Magic. It's hard to argue now that they made a bad call. This game was ugly. The other game was not.

Let's just get this over with quickly. Rip the band aid right off:
3's weren't falling
Got killed on the boards
Again
Marion played D
Bulls can't shoot (Noah can't even dunk)
LB got separation
A W is a W

Maybe someone else can find something profound in this game. A sign of things to come. A corner turned. A trend started or ended or continued or demolished. But all I can come up with was a fairly blah offensive performance which was still good enough to beat a depleted Bulls team that threw up more air-balls then you will see at your normal pee-wee game.

I suppose the big news for Suns fans is the continued futility on the boards. All year we have discussed this. Is it the much smaller line up the Suns play or lack or emphasis and effort? Of course, it's both. I felt like the Suns team played hard so we will have to wait for the game flow stats from Popcorn Machine's great web site, but I suspect that for the better part of the game the Bulls had two seven footers on the floor along with a guy like Tyrus Thomas at the 3. TT would be a center on the Suns team.

For the last game of fairly unimpressive 3 and 1 road trip played at basket-brunch time I suppose its best just to call it a day and come home to start a stretch of 7 of 8 at home that includes the Spurs, Hornets, Mavs and Warriors before the all star break.

Sherpa's of the Game:

Amare's 24 pts on 9-16 and an impressive 38 minutes considering his early foul troubles
Marion's 11 boards, 6 steals, 15 pts and great lock down performance on D against Kirk at some key moments
Barbosa's 5-8 13 points which included the key baskets late in the game to finally get separation

Next up: The ATL comes to the PHX. Boxscore Recap Blog a Bull

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Comments

Meh...

About the best thing I took from this game was Diaw playing rather well. Hopefully he shall continue to play better. Other than that you could tell that this early nature of this game through off the Suns, which in turn led to some piss poor passes and shots.

"Ultimate excellence lies not in winning every battle, but in defeating your enemy without ever fighting." Sun Tzu

by Turambar on Jan 27, 2008 5:59 PM MST reply actions

LB finished +13

Another good thing was that LB finished with the best plus/minus of any player in the game. Often, even when he's scoring a bundle of points, he ends up on the negative side, for some reason. I haven't figured this out, except that he's often in the game without Nash, who is the +/- king.

And MAYBE it's also partly because LB's not such a great defender or rebounder. It'd be really nice if he improved those aspects of his game. Not having seen yesterday's atrocity (but I know .... a W), I can't tell if it was a sign of something like this or not. Be nice though.

by SueB on Jan 28, 2008 1:00 PM MST reply actions

Hi SueB!

I think LB's +/- was so high b/c his offense effeciency was good (high FG%) and I suspect that while he was in the game Marion was on Hinrich which made the overall team D go way up.

Orangutans are this year's Lemurs

by Seth Pollack on Jan 28, 2008 6:50 PM MST up reply actions

Could be

I didn't see the game, so you're probably right. But I can't tell you how many times I've seen LB with a negative point balance - or at least a low one compared to the other players - even though he's scored 20 points or something like that. It's uncanny.

by SueB on Jan 28, 2008 7:56 PM MST up reply actions

Welcome back!

We've missed you around here lately.

by TexSUN on Jan 28, 2008 8:50 PM MST up reply actions

Thanks

I've been caught up in the madness of azcentral for a bit. What a mistake! The conversation is so much saner and more intelligent here. If only I could convince my friend the azc addict to post here instead. :) But he likes all the giving and taking of BS over there.

by SueB on Jan 29, 2008 4:51 AM MST up reply actions

azcentral

That was my first Suns chat site. Too many flamers and nutballs for my taste. Plus there was some really crazy poster that would do nothing but make fun of the Suns.

'07-'08 Suns: It's clobberin' time!

by Hawk42 on Jan 29, 2008 5:11 AM MST reply actions

You get into a weird rhythm with it

You learn to ignore the idiots and just recognize and respond to the sane ones. Some of the non-Suns fans are actually the most entertaining posters there. And the threads do sometimes veer way off the topic of the Suns, which can be enjoyable once in a while. And everything starts over fresh with a new article thread each day.

So ... it's different. I still enjoy it, in small doses. Need to come here more often though. No idiots to have to ignore. ;)

by SueB on Jan 29, 2008 5:43 AM MST up reply actions