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Nash's Heroics Fall Short, Mavericks Down Suns 102-101

The fun part of playing the Mavericks in Dallas is watching Steve Nash pull magic out of a hat. Without him tonight, we wouldn't all be sitting here saying, we should have just won that game.

This one stings. It stings because we had many, many, many chances to win down the stretch. One or two or three shots made here and there, and well...

The Suns came out ready to play. You could sense how much they wanted this one by the speed and aggressiveness of their play in the opening quarter.  Jason Richardson was active early playing the full first quarter and bucketing 8 points and 5 rebounds.  Steve Nash chipped in 8 of his own while Amare Stoudemire scored 6.

Early foul trouble led to early appearances from Lou Amundson and Jared Dudley. The Suns ended the first quarter led by Dudley and Nash on a 9-2 run.

In the second, the Suns continued to shoot over 50% and execute. A Dragic 3 led to a Suns 8-point lead at the midway point of the second period.

But Dallas fought back. Dirk Nowitzki  made a variety of impossible shots and benefited by a clear ghost call on a three point play (he wasn't touched). For some reason the Suns either didn't recognize Jose Juan Berea asa member of the opposing team or couldn't make the rotation to cover him as he scored 12 early points, 3 of his baskets came on wide open looks. The Suns led 50-49 at the half.

In the third quarter, Nowitzki and Howard went to work on the Suns, scoring 13 points while Stoudemire and Nash kept things within striking range.

Down the stretch, the Suns had many chances to erase the Mav's lead. But every time they began a small run off of a defensive stop or Mavericks turnover, they couldn't make the shots. Down by 5, Channing Frye was left open for a three and bricked one from long range. Jason Richardson stole a Jason Terry pass and attempted to out run 3 Mavericks to the rim, but instead ran over Jason Kidd for a charge.

Star-divide

As much as this game should have been a win for the Suns, we have to give some credit to the Mavericks. Dirk Nowitzki (33 points, 8 boards) and Josh Howard (20 points, 6 boards) had huge nights. Nowitzki was virtually unstoppable, hitting his fade away and nearly everything else he lobbed into the air (12-20). Josh Howard was basically a game time decision to play. Coming off the bench Howard played 26 effective minutes.

The Suns never really recaptured the energy from the first quarter, but managed to stay in the game and keep it close in the 4th. That's when Nash decided he would not lose without giving Mark Cuban a little something to remember him by...:

  • Dirk Nowitzki hit a high arching two putting the Mavericks up 7 with less than 2 minutes to play. Jason Terry followed up with a layup to put the Mavericks up 9. But Stoudemire followed with a 3 point play and Nash hit a typical Nash-esque off-balanced three to pull to within 3 points with less than a minute to go.
  • With 45 seconds left the Mavericks had the ball and went right to Nowitzki with Jared Dudley in his grill. With nowhere to go Nowtzki passed out to Jason Kidd who drilled a wide open three. (LOUD SIGH)
  • After a time out, the Suns set up a nice inbound play for Jason Richardson, who rubbed off a Grant Hill screen and knocked down a three to bring the Mavs lead to 98-96. After two Jason Terry free throws, the Suns had the ball with 11 seconds left, and guess what happened??? Steve Nash swished another long range three to bring the Suns within one.

Jason Terry missed the first of his two free throws and purposely missed the second as the Suns had no timeouts left to stop the clock. GAME OVER.

Other Thoughts and Observations

  • Could this game have looked any more even from the boxscore?:

Suns 44.3% FG, Mavericks 44.7%

Suns 7-19 3PT, Mavericks 6-23

Suns 40 rebounds, Mavericks 42

Suns 24-25 FT, Mavericks 20-23

Suns 15 TO, Mavericks 13

  • In the second quarter Robin Lopez ripped a rebound away from Drew Gooden. Lopez is a strong man, but he simply wanted the ball more than Gooden. Even though play ended in a jump ball, the Suns ended up winning the tip. I like what I am seeing from Fropez.
  • It's strange watching Shawn Marion play for another team. I never watched him play for the Heat, but he clearly affects the game when he is on the floor. His outside shot looks more atrocious than ever, but his floater is still pretty sweet.
  • Josh Howard played great for a guy who missed the prior 13 games while rehabbing an ankle injury.
  • It was apparrant there is a major difference when Lou Amundson is on the floor, chasing down the ball, never quitting on a play.
  • I loved the Amare jump pass to J-Rich for the dunk in the first quarter. They must be working on that one in practice.
  • Has Jason Terry ever committed a foul? Better yet has he ever committed a foul on not complained about it? I loved him at U of A, but they guy needs to stop crying.
  • I liked the way the Suns played tonight. If we are not in the Lakers class in the upper tier of the Western Conference, we are certainly in the second tier, amongst the 4-6 seeds. I would think Leandro Barbosa could have helped out in this one
  • The next stretch of games will tell us a lot more about how the Phoenix Suns rank within the Western Conference:


 

Fri 12/11 vs Orlando

Sat 12/12 @Denver

Tues 12/15 vs San Antonio

Thurs 12/17 @Portland

 


FINAL - 12.8.20091234TOTAL
Phoenix Suns 29 21 20 31 101
Dallas Mavericks 23 26 28 25 102

 

Suns vs Mavericks boxscore

Suns vs Mavericks coverage

Suns vs Mavericks recap

Mavs Moneyball

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The effort was there, and a Suns-Mavs matchup is always entertaining. I was surprised at how well Josh Howard played considering he is just coming off an injury. And who was that JJ Barea guy slicing and dicing the Suns in the first quarter?

Still, Steve Nash and company can walk away from this game knowing it could have very easily gone the other way. Hopefully they can get the next one with the Magic at home.

Yet another Suns blog: http://phxsunsnews.com

by JasonEllis on Dec 8, 2009 10:54 PM MST reply actions  

Nash Isn't Shy Knocking Them Down

While Steve Nash has always been a mega force when it comes to assists, there have been times when he’s been a little gun shy in the scoring department.
However, his long distance firing from beyond the arc in the final minute against Dallas puts him clearly in a class by himself when it comes to scoring.
A closer look from our perspective as available at:
http://www.sunsstufft.com/2009-articles/december/nash-pushes-it-down-to-the-wire.html
From the folks at www.sunsstufft.com.

by fedres on Dec 8, 2009 11:19 PM MST reply actions  

Rotations

PhxStan alluded to this in another post but ever since we started losing some games (and LB) the rotations have become tighter and the starters are playing more. I would argue if we’re gonna be a good team come playoff time, we need our defense to play at least average, and our best defenders seem to be our reserves. They need more time on the court…We had the luxury of a good start and the bench was playing well. Now they aren’t getting much floor time as the noose has been tightened on the starters. As much as I loved Gentry’s decisions early in the year, he doesn’t seem to have trust in the bench with LB out. Of course, our competition has gotten better, so that may have something to do with it. But the bench will only get better by playing more minutes against better competition.

The NBA is about adjustments…Right now teams have figured us out: they are defending the pick-n-roll well and putting a bigger, taller defender on Nash is killing the offensive rhythm. We haven’t made adjustments well…Of course, the lack of ability to make in-game adjustments has killed us before (see every playoff series against the Spurs)

Also, the movement on offense has been terrible. Lots of standing around. Maybe it’s the lack of practice time, schedule, etc. but this team is gonna need to figure out multiple ways to score other than pick-n-roll and pick-n-pop.

Overall 15-7 is great and all and we all know it’s a long season but we really need to start playing better basketball. I don’t care about the losses, I care about how they happen…

by ArizonaCactus on Dec 9, 2009 12:10 AM MST reply actions  

Trust in the bench

There’s no one on the bench who is a scorer except LB. Even when he’s not scoring, he’s attracting so much attention that the other players get good looks. No one in the same class as Barbosa when it comes to scoring ability. All that defensive hustle is nice, but you still have to score to win.

Mmmmm ... Guinness

by JSun on Dec 9, 2009 8:48 AM MST up reply actions  

Competitive

The one thing I was most interested in was the competitive level of the game. The Suns showed that they are at least on par with Dallas which is a good sign. It’s going to be a tough month but we’ll have a much better understanding of what needs improving after December is over.

by Brian Fidler on Dec 9, 2009 10:58 AM MST reply actions  

I don't think this was a bad loss

Hell, maybe it was the first loss of the season that we weren’t blown out and looked like complete crap. We were competitive, but Dallas just gave a little more effort, at least in the third quarter. You’ve got to play 48 minutes. That’s the deal.

But we still lost. And that is bad. So even though I can take things away from this game that are positive, I’m frustrated that we lost another game. We’re middle of the pack now, and falling, and the schedule gets harder.

Fanaticism is not logical

by SunDolphin on Dec 9, 2009 11:02 AM MST reply actions  

Missing LB

really showed in this one and for the first time I think

Blogging Suns Basketball . twitter: @phoenixstan

by Seth Pollack on Dec 9, 2009 11:25 AM MST reply actions  

tactics

I only watched the first quarter but it seems its time for gentry to earn his coaching stripes. They were some new looks in the offence I saw which were good but I think past couple of games we have missed LB and LOU but I think coach needs to earn his money and to send a message to the team, injuries happen to all teams but he needs to make adjustments and not go dantoni on us and keep the rotations small.

On the road I think its time to start Lopez (1st option) or maybe LOU like first 4 mins like some other teams do with their centers ,see how Lopez is going I am sure some1 can bring it up but Frye’s shooting on the road is killing us but he needs to adapt his game as well we have big men coach on the staff he needs to learn how to play at the basket as well (I think its called in the post I am not sure to be honest I don’t know what the post is in basketball terms, I know I am a nube)

Nash Jrich Hill Stat Lopez

Dragic LB JDud LOU Frye

Both linups are balanced and maybe put Clark in SF and ask him just to play defence

I guess I like to see coaches think of tactical changes like I see in soccer with my team and sometimes with Coach Whiz does for the cards hopefully Gentry will tinker a bit.

by phxuk: Ap on Dec 9, 2009 12:48 PM MST reply actions  

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