Nash Running Less of the Show

This was interesting b/c it was a trend I had been seeing all year and just had the time this weekend to explore in more detail.

But you're absolutely right. I had also thought that Houston was a good match up for us to go inside early.

I remember after the trade I was feeling like I was watching a team that I didn't recognize. Now, as things come together you can also start to see paterns of play develop and personally it feel more comfortable and familiar even though it is now different w/ Shaq.

Btw - Hill had 5 of his 10 assists in the first quarter. I know only one - on the first play actually - went to Amare. The rest were simply entry passes to Shaq that he finished. That's a case were the stat doesn't really do justice to the play. On those it was Shaq working to get inside position and also using Amare screens to cut across the lane to get deep for that pass from Hill.

But jeez.  Look at the roster he walked into.  They cut his balls off in Feb too.  

Still, you don't get credit for rolling over.  Just ask hands-tied GM Larry Harris.

The SUNS - NOW THE HOTTEST TEAM IN THE NBA!

thx for update

Nothing in this Verse can stop us!

It's easy to have big man-love for Amare and Matrix based on stats, but in both cases neither player is capable of triggering his own offense.  It's only recently, imho, since the Shaq trade, that Amare has been able to tell the difference between stunt basketball and real basketball, and figured out which one is most important.

But Steve Nash is capable of dominating a game without scoring a single point or making a single assist, simply by facilitating the ability of other players to do those things. I don't think there's any other player in the game today about whom one could make the same claim.

The Atlanta pick is the key.  We need to get someone who can complement both players, either a Wes Unseld type post monster like Kevin Love, or a SF/SG type that can defend like Richard Hamilton.

Believe it or not, I share your sadness that it's changing, even though I know the Suns are a better team now that they're more big-man oriented, and less dependent on their point guard (and that Nash himself is probably ecstatic about it). In fact, I said as much in a Q&A with Steve Weinman at CelticsBlog last night. The "new" Suns to me are a little like a movie that I can recognize as great, and all my friends love it, but for some inexplicable reason, I just can't seem to love it myself. But this new "movie" starring Amare and Shaq is more likely to win the NBA equivalent of an Oscar than it was before, and that's what it's supposed to be about.

But in the end, Hannibal was defeated. Carthage was razed and destroyed, and its ground salted by the Romans so nothing would ever grow there again.  

After we beat the Lakers in the playoffs, it would be cool to dig a hole in the parking lot at Staples and fill it with salt, as a symbolic gesture.