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I wanna be sidepart's sidekick!

If you haven't yet, check out sidepart's comments and pix in the MIN recap! I wish I could have been down there with you, bud! I made it to the game, but it was kinda crazy. I teach until 2:00 on Wednesdays and tried to let the students out early, but two of them kept asking questions about their term papers. I finally busted out of there and hustled the 4 hours up to the Twin Cities. I was afraid this might be the last time I would ever see Steve Nash play live, fearful that a lockout next year might just make him think retirement.

I paid $5.50 apiece for bottom of the balcony seats (section 232)-- yeah, they're practically giving away tickets in MINNY. And Love didn't play, either, so it was pretty empty on a Wednesday night. The only time the fans got loud was when PHX was shooting free throws-- the scoreboard puts up this Howl-O-Meter and everyone yells to try to get the gauge to rev all the way into the red.

Oh yeah, and I had this extremely obnoxious 10-year-old right behind me screaming in my right ear 'cause I was wearing an orange Nash #13 shirt (just like sidepart's-- I counted at least 20 Nash shirts and probably another dozen PHX shirts just from where I was sitting). He yelled, "Brick!" on every PHX shot ( the little brick) and screamed, "Foul!" and "Technical!" when PHX was on defense (well, not that there was much D, but , you know...). He booed tremendously on some of Hak's dunks (not really sure why), but I drowned out his boos with yelling and applause--yeah, not too mature for a 50 year-old to outscream a 10-year-old, but it was either that or throw him off the balcony, so I think I chose the right course of action.

It was really cool to be able to focus on all the different things that the camera usually doesn't follow. The main one was Nash's hand signals to the bench. It looked like a kind of sign language, one palm out, the other one kind of flapping against it. Does anyone know what that was? I wonder if he was wondering about how many minutes he had left or something. He was on D, so he wasn't asking about a play. Kinda different.

It would be so awesome to play with Nash. He sees everything and can get the ball anywhere. Brooks seems to be always thinking, "Option #1: me shoot! Yeah, let's go with that!" And Beasly would be an absolute bore to play with, iso and honk up his shot.

I loved Gortat's footwork on rebounds, continuing to work even if the tip goes away from, hustling and scrapping, unlike another PHX center who shall be nameless, ROBIN!, who takes one swipe at the ball then turns and trundles down the court. I laughed my butt off when Gortat first sat down and SILOOOOO! came in instead of Lopez!

Hak seems so lost when he receives the pass on the high elbow. "Can I dunk it from here? Can I dunk it from here?" He just swings around and around. And he's all knees and elbows, flying and churning and getting in each others' way, practically poking the ball away from himself. He's kinda like one of those old rickety wooden stepladders-- he can get enormous extension when everything clicks into place, but otherwise he all but collapses in a heap, pinching fingers and causing more harm than good.

Dudz was off, and Frye was way off, but it was still good to see the remarkable difference between PHX and MIN, and to realize the SUNS are not really down in that category-- a team with no identity. I don't think the Wolves know how many sides Rambis' triangle has.

Grant came out like a MAN, scoring 7 as PHX led 11-2. And really there wasn't any doubt about who could win if they wanted to. I thought PHX might throw the game on purpose or something there for a while in the 3rd, but PHX has a system that can work, despite the current inconsistent parts. It was so obvious Nash is still hurting. Once he ran back on D hunched over like a little Lopez. Next year, if there is a next year, he shouldn't start playing until game 20.

Anyway, I was able to see Steve do one more "old-man-at-the-Y" left handed hook in the lane as the shot clock wound down, and that made it more than worth it, even though I didn't get back to Des Moines until 2:00.