I don't know who's got the recap this game, so I'm making a backup.

This was a tale of two halves and three teams.

FIRST HALF: LOS SUNS GRANDISIMOS vs. the Warriors
In the first half, Los Suns Grandisimos played at par or slightly below par against the Warriors. In the second half, Los Suns Pequinos showed they still knew how to play. The prevailing wisdom throughout the game was that the Warriors had learned out to "out-Suns the Suns." In general, I think this is probably still true.

Logically, then the Suns only recourse would be to pound the ball inside and put the fouls and the hurt on Golden State. As everyone has seen, the Warriors play an exciting brand of basketball and in the first half they looked like the Harlem Globetrotters while the Suns looked like the Washington Generals. The Warriors picked the Suns pocket for 13 TOs in the first quarter. They scissored their ways through our defense and the ball danced from Warrior to Warrior to basket. The Suns were down by 5 at the half only due to lights-out shooting against a Warriors team that had caused 13 to 3 turnovers and scored 12 fastbbreak points to 2 at the half.

In one sense, the SUNS "pound the ball inside" plan had backfired. Don Nelson's shrewd strategy hinged around exposing the weaknesses of the Suns top players, Steve Nash defensively and Shaquille O'Neal offensively.

In the case of Shaquille O'Neal, besides Hack-a-Shaq which failed in the first quarter, the Warriors were more successful with blanketing Shaq. Credit to the brave (read: disposable) Warriors players (read: scrubs like Austin Croshere) who put their faces in the path of Shaq's elbows. These defenders were so close and so low that there was no way Shaq could turn without taking out their jaw. Anyway, with some early complicity of the officials, this strategy worked in getting Shaq in foul trouble. It was so exasperating that instead of putting the fouls on the Warriors, it was Shaq who had accrued 3 fouls in the first quarter! After getting the fourth early in the second half, D'Antoni, at that point, made the right decision to leave Shaq in the game. If the officials want to decide the game by calling potentially dubious fouls, then put the onus on the officials to foul out Shaq. Taking him out prematurely following that series of calls would be to accomplice to a crime. There's no reason to play along with that kind of officiating. And sure enough, there were probably a few Shaq fouls later in the game that were probably overlooked, I think out of reluctance to lay the fifth foul until a foul was clearly committed. Of course, I don't mean to criticize the officiating, other than to say that the way they chose to call it early on was favorable to Warriors style basketball. The second half, the Suns may have picked up some breaks.

I'm still amazed by how differently our team responds with Shaq in the game than without. The stat line just doesn't convey his impact. For example, Shaq's presence draws so much opposition attention that other SUNS seem to get more rebounds. Another reason they seem to get more rebounds is that in a few cases, Shaq's positioning down low seems to draw Stoudemire closer to the basket as well. Sometimes, when Shaq is not there, I think Amare wanders around more and is a less effective rebounder as a result.

The attempt to expose Steve Nash had mixed results. Part of this is because of the Suns use of zone in big portions of the game, that effectively masked some of the Suns weaknesses but also contributed to the Warriors perimeter players putting a dizzying number of points on the board. It was hard not to think of Dallas as Golden State continued to seemingly have their way.

SECOND HALF: LOS SUNS PEQUINOS vs the Warriors
With Shaq out much of the rest of the game due to foul trouble (he played 14 minutes total), the Suns had to go to Suns lite and face the Warriors, small-ball to small-ball and face the consequences against the dangerous Warriors team. This Suns team was a reprise of the Suns team we've had for the past four years, sans Marion, and this time, they played great for three reasons. The main engine of Los Suns Pequinos was the three gaurd backcourt of Nash, Raja and Barbosa together.

At the half, I cannot believe that Baron Davis said the Warrior's strategy was to run both "Shaq and Amare off-the-court". Shaq, sure. But Amare?? Rather surprisingly, it appeared that in the third and fourth quarters it was Golden State who had run out of steam, possibly since this game was the second of a back-to-back. In one exchange, the Warriors took a shot, and three Warriors began running back to defense even before the shot got off! Then the Suns rebounded easily and Nash shot a pass to Amare who was inexplicably already past those same three defenders and glided in easily for a dunk.

First, in terms of Don Nelson's strategy, the partial success of destroying the Suns "pound-the-rock" strategy and exposing the Suns top players was incomplete because the Warriors had no answer to the Suns other big star, Amare Stoudemire. With Shaq out, Amare was free to operate and expose Captain Jack as a fantastic, but undersized player. Amare exploited the Warriors weak interior, doing most of his damage inside, effectively pounding the rock and grabbing rebounds. As the announcers noted, Amare is a tougher, more athletic and aggressive player than Dirk, so using an aggressive but undersized player like Captain Jack just didn't have the same effect. Fortunately, because of the critical differences between Dirk and Amare, we may just avoid the fate of Dallas come playoff time.

Second, Steve Nash took a tip from the Spurs playbook. He chose to slow it down a little in the second half. Like the Spurs when they played the Suns last year, this years Suns lite team selectively ran on the Warriors. They took better care of the ball and this solved many of the discrepancies in turnovers and fastbreak points. Also, we can always count on Steve Nash for clutch shooting. He's one of the best we you need a shot.

Third, we got great bench support when we needed it. The bench combined for 36 points, 7 assists, 9 rebounds but also 8 TOs in 45 minutes. That's as many Tos as the starters had in the other 195 available minutes. However, bench energy, activity and shooting was in line with what we needed. GG was 2 of 3 from 3, his first threes with the SUNS. Barbosa was a little below par at 2 of 6, with one series of three wide open misses coming late in the game. After each of the first two misses, the Suns were able to get the long rebound and shuffle it back to an open LB as he shift along the three point arc towards the baseline. He missed all three catch and shoot wide open 3pt attempts in a row!

Boris continues to be an enigma. His stat line was solid with 16 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists. However, he also caused a number of mind-boggling turnovers to go with the occasional flashes of brilliance. I think the reason why he is so reluctant to force the issue under the basket is that his upper body strength is just not enough to deliver results. On the occasions where he doesn't pass the ball out when he's entrenched under the hoop, his ability to finish is weak. Knowing this, I think, he opts to pass the ball back out quite often.

Armchair Theory: Our bench is particularly more effective against run-and-gun teams than it is against the bigger teams or more defensive-oriented teams. Particularly, the bench is designed to play small ball.

Unfortunately, this summary fails to say enough about the contributions of Raja's defense on Baron Davis or Grant Hills contributions, which included 11 rebounds among an array of smart plays.

SUMMARY
The SUNS have won a hope-inspiring series of home games against good teams. They are now showing, like the Spurs in the past, the potential to beat teams both ways. It doesn't mean we're the best run-and-gun team anymore, but for one night, the running Suns were back and showed they still knew how to play. With smart, selective running, the SUNS do not necessarily fall into the trap of carelessness that so many SUNS foes have in the past.

(ASIDE: Miami has won 3 of their last 36 games. Are you missing Marion tonight? How much? Ask yourself again in two weeks. Repeat.)

Player of the Game: In the same breath, the POG goes to our devastating tandem of Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire (+345 by 82games' player pairs). Steve Nash for getting the game under control in the second half by running wisely and his clutch 3 Pt Shooting. Amare for crushing the Warrior's weak interior. Amare is even starting to pass more and get a few assists!

Runner-Up: Bench Baby! See above.

Technical Fury
The combination of some odd officiating and the Suns emotional desire to get a home win against a team that had beaten them all season, the SUNS picked up FOUR technical fouls. D'Antoni and O'Neal picked ones up early in response to the Shaq calls. Grant picked up only the 7th technical in his 13 year career following a dangerous no-call. The no-call was probably the correct call although Monte Ellis undercut Hill in the air, causing Grant to slam his wrist hard onto the deck. Hill was pretty upset and picked up the "T". If you let the play be a no-call, why not let the resulting complaint also be a no-call? Grant's response was entirely understandable given how hard he hit the ground. We are so lucky he didn't get badly hurt. Losing Grant on this team would be a disaster. Nash also picked up a T as well.

Injury Watch:
Grant Hill slammed his right wrist. It appears sprained and with some swelling. There may be an MRI and who knows then?
Raja Bell continues to have back spasms, but played.